Adopt a Music Creator 2022 pairings announced

Celebrated project brings together music creators and leisure-time music groups to collaborate on new music for premiere

Making Music, the UK’s membership organisation for leisure-time music, is delighted to announce the pairings selected for the Adopt a Music Creator project 2022. The year-long project pairs leisure-time music groups with an emerging music creator for a year, culminating in a premiere performance, recording and radio broadcast.

The landmark project began as Adopt a Composer in 2000, inspiring over 120 hugely diverse works and performances by music creators and leisure-time music groups of all types and genres across the UK. Now known as Adopt a Music Creator, the project has broadened its scope for more opportunities and collaborations.

While music groups get a chance to participate in the creative process and discover new music, music creators have an opportunity to form a close working relationship with their group, allowing them to respond to the group’s unique personality and interests. Each pairing is assigned an experienced mentor to support and guide the creator and group, helping the process run smoothly.

Alongside the pairings of one group and one music creator, a Collaborate Pathway, allows two music groups to apply to work together with a matched music creator.

The Adopt a Music Creator 2022 pairings are as follows:

– Edgar Divver and Bedfordshire Woodwind Academy Flute Ensemble (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)

– Joshua Brown and Glasgow Orchestral Society (mentored by Ailie Robertson)

– Emily Peasgood and Oxted Band (mentored by Colin Riley)

– Dominic Matthews and Singing for Pleasure, Warwick (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)

– Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones and Voices of Exmoor (mentored by Lynne Plowman)

– Collaborate Pathway:  Caitlin Harrison, Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra and Reading Youth Orchestra (mentored by Fraser Trainer)

Adopt a Music Creator is run by Making Music in conjunction with Sound and Music, the national organisation for new music, and funded by the PRS Foundation and Philip and Dorothy Green Trust.

Barbara Eifler, Chief Executive of Making Music, said:

“Adopt a Music Creator is a very special project, pairing professional music creators and leisure-time music groups for an experimental creative process. Yes, the result will be a piece written specifically for each group, but it’s not all about the end product: running this project under Covid-19 has highlighted how the journey is as important as the final concert, with groups and music creators endlessly inventive about how to connect, get to know each other and have fun exploring new sound worlds, even when inhabiting a mostly digital world.”

Hannah Bujic, Co-Head of Artist Development, Sound and Music, said:

“We’re thrilled to introduce the music creators and groups as they begin their time together on this unique, challenging and deeply rewarding programme. With uncertainties and challenges to ways of working continuing this year, there is ever more need for the dedication and imagination that the participants on Adopt a Music Creator unfailingly bring to the creative process. We look forward to joining them on their collaborative journeys.”

Although the pandemic has thrown up huge challenges to music making, leisure-time music groups and the professionals they work with have shown time and again how resilient and creative they are even under difficult circumstances.

Last year’s Adopt a Music Creator project went ahead as planned, with the selected pairings adapting to a new world of Zoom sessions and socially distanced rehearsals, soon to culminate in their much-awaited premieres. Read more about their creative journeys on the Making Music blog.

You can also hear a selection of new works created from the 2019/20 round of projects on BBC Radio 3 from 17 to 21 January, with one piece played daily following the Radio 3 in Concert broadcasts which begin at 7.30pm.

Find out more about Adopt a Music Creator on the Making Music projects page. For more information, contact Sally Palmer, Making Music Projects Manager, at sally@makingmusic.org.uk

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Making Music, The National Federation of Music Societies
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Notes to editors

Partner organisations:

Making Music is a UK membership body representing over 3,800 leisure-time music groups made up of around 220,000 musicians of all types, genres and abilities. Since 1935, it has championed its members across the UK with practical services, artistic development opportunities, and by providing a collective voice for the sector. Amateur music groups spend £18.7m every year on professional conductors, accompanists, workshop leaders, soloists, singers, instrumentalists, arrangers and music creators, and in many places, they provide the only opportunities open to everyone to experience or take part in live music. Making Music supports and enables groups to do this. makingmusic.org.uk

Sound and Music is the national organisation for new music. Their vision is to create a world where new music and sound prospers, transforming lives, challenging expectations and celebrating the work of its creators. Sound and Music supports a diverse range of talented composers to develop their work; helps audiences to discover and experience new music; and enables children and young people to explore their musical creativity. They strive for a world in which more people of all ages and from all backgrounds have more opportunities to access, create and enjoy new music. soundandmusic.org

PRS Foundation is the UK’s leading charitable funder of new music and talent development. Since 2000, PRS Foundation has given more than £35 million to over 7,300 new music initiatives by awarding grants and leading partnership programmes that support music sector development. Widely respected as an adventurous and proactive funding body, PRS Foundation supports an exceptional range of new music activity – from composer residencies and commissions to a network of talent development partners and showcases in the UK and overseas. prsfoundation.com

The Philip and Dorothy Green Trust was established by film and television composer and conductor Philip Green (1911-1982) and his wife, Dorothy, to help young musicians and composers. The Trust has co-funded the Adopt a Music Creator project (previously Adopt a Composer) since 2015.

2022 participants:

– Edgar Divver and  Bedfordshire Woodwind Academy Flute Ensemble (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)

Edgar Divver  is an award-winning composer and educator who has had works performed by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Singers, Psappha and The Ossian Ensemble, amongst others. He studied at the University of Birmingham and Royal Northern College of Music. He balances his freelance composing and instrumental teaching career with working for the Hallé in Manchester as part of their Youth Ensembles team. edgardivver.com

Bedfordshire Woodwind Academy Flute Ensemble  is an award-winning group of amateur flute players that meets regularly on Monday evenings during term-time. They play a full repertoire of music from classical favourites to jazz and pop, and perform regularly at a variety of events, as well as tours to Europe. Established in 2006 by Liz Childs, the group is intended for all enthusiastic flautists of Grade 3 standard and above. The group uses the full range of flutes – piccolo to contrabass. bedfordshireflutes.org

– Joshua Brown and Glasgow Orchestral Society (mentored by Ailie Robertson)

Joshua Brown  completed his PhD in composition with Professor Philip Grange at the University of Manchester. From 2019-2020, he was Artist in Residence at the John Rylands Research Institute, and a London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composer. His music often explores a dichotomy of precision processes alongside elements of chance, and embraces the unique qualities individual musicians bring to a piece of music, so that each composition feels like a premiere every time it is played. joshuabrowncomposer.com

Glasgow Orchestral Society plays a wide range of music, from the classical era to the present day, including new works and choral works with local choirs. They are non-auditioned, rehearse weekly on Monday evenings and enjoy making music to the highest standards, having as much fun as possible in the process! Unusually, they have different conductors for each of their four concerts, each bringing their own personality and distinctive style to their music-making. Glasgow Orchestral Society was to celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2020-21. Now, they celebrate every opportunity to play together. gos.org.uk

– Emily Peasgood and Oxted Band (mentored by Colin Riley)

Emily Peasgood  is an award-winning composer and artist. She creates research-led and site-specific artworks for galleries and outdoor public spaces, ranging from large-scale community events to intimate sound installations. Her work invites people to connect with people and places that are forgotten, overlooked or surrounded in histories that can be remembered and celebrated through sound. emilypeasgood.com

Oxted Band  is an amateur brass band based in the Surrey town of Oxted, where they have been since 1901. The band is made up of a friendly group of amateur musicians who come from all walks of life, but are drawn together by the common interest of playing music, for enjoyment, to improve themselves as well as to entertain those who listen. The band meets weekly throughout the year to rehearse a variety of music which it performs at a range of events, including their own concerts, local events, and community events around Christmas and Remembrance Sunday. oxtedband.co.uk

– Dominic Matthews and Singing for Pleasure, Warwick (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)

Dominic Matthews  is an experimental composer, guitarist and conductor. His music explores new ways to define the concept of colour in music, delving into distinct, different and often peculiar timbres and textures. In addition, he is excited by multi-disciplinary collaboration, fusing different musical genres and artistic practices to create unique, often primal and visceral soundscapes. dominicmatthewsmusic.com

Singing for Pleasure choir started in January 2011 under the auspices of Warwick District University of the Third Age, but is now independent. They sing in a variety of styles – folk, popular, classical – and enjoy sharing music with others. They have sung in a number of places in the UK and in France, and have performed with other choirs as well as raising several thousand pounds for local charities. singing-for-pleasure.co.uk

– Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones and Voices of Exmoor (mentored by Lynne Plowman)

Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones  is a composer, vocalist, songwriter and audio producer. Her work spans Scandinavian folk music, alternative pop music, sound art and audio documentary. Recent projects include a new commission for Love Music and Freedom of Mind Community Choir; a residency with Oxford Contemporary Music exploring moving, site-specific performance; and a collaborative songwriting project ‘Missed Connections’ with songs based on Craigslist classifieds. hannahfredsgaardjones.com

Voices of Exmoor  is a mixed-voice community choir open to all regardless of ability, experience or whether they can read music or not. The choir normally presents two main concerts each year – one in the summer and one before Christmas – but has also enjoyed singing at weddings and other celebrations. After covering concert costs, the choir makes a donation to a chosen charity for each year. Over 16 years the choir has been singing together, thousands of pounds have been donated to many local charities. voicesofexmoor.org.uk

– Collaborate Pathway:  Caitlin Harrison, Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra and Reading Youth Orchestra (mentioned by Fraser Trainer)

Caitlin Harrison’s works have been performed by ensembles including the Kreutzer Quartet, Oxford Philharmonic, BBC Singers, Trio Atem and Exeter College Choir (Oxford). She was shortlisted for the NCEM Young Composers Competition 2020, Ernest Read Symphony Orchestra’s Emerging Composers Competition 2020, and the Henfrey Composition Prize 2021. Caitlin studied composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and the University of Oxford. facebook.com/caitlinharrisoncomposer

Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra is a non-professional orchestra based in Reading, Berkshire. Working on a project basis, the orchestra presents two or three formal concerts per year, plus a variety of workshops, events and performances at festivals. With an adventurous repertoire, they especially love performing music by living composers and have commissioned nearly five hours of new music from their Young Composers Award winners over the last 15 years. In 2021, APO was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Inspiration Award. aldworthphilharmonic.org.uk

Reading Youth Orchestra is a small, friendly community of young musicians based in Reading, Berkshire. One of the oldest youth orchestras in the UK, it was founded in 1944, just before the end of the War. It’s since grown bigger and stronger, with former members found in many professional orchestras and teaching positions across the country. They are proud to be continuing a long history of providing local students with a place to play great music in a supportive environment every Friday night. readingyouthorchestra.co.uk