Music Bridge

Inspiring and engaging communities and individuals through music

Music Bridge works across the North West, engaging communities and individuals through music. We have four strands of activity: concerts, new music projects, education and outreach, and community music training.

We provide an innovative and exciting programme of engagement through music, delivered by trained and experienced community musicians and artists. We are also a training provider for cultural/youth organisations and community practitioners across the region who wish to use music as a tool for community engagement and development.

We train musicians, and youth and community workers in the principles of community music-making, leadership, facilitation skills and nonviolence and help build the capacity of local organisations to facilitate community work through musical interactions, making a meaningful contribution towards community development and peace-building in the region.

What is community music?

 "Community music is characterised by the following principles: decentralisation, accessibility, equal opportunity, and active participation in music-making. These principles are social and political ones, and there can be no doubt that community music activity is more than a purely musical one." International Society of Music Education’s (ISME) Community Music Activity commission

"Music in community centres, prisons and retirement homes; extra-curricular projects for school children and youth; public music schools; community bands, orchestras and choirs; musical projects with asylum seekers; marching bands for street children. All this—and more—comes under the heading of community music.... But a single definition of community music is yet to be found." ISME Community Music Activity commission 2002 conference

Community music is an approach to music making that stresses active collaboration between individuals who play, create, improvise and perform music together. It is music making that fosters individual growth and community development.

WHAT COMMUNITY MUSIC IS (or strives to be):

Open to all, Cooperative, Fluid, Non-Judgemental, Unselfish, Process-Centered

WHAT COMMUNITY MUSIC IS NOT:

Competitive, Formal, Exclusionary, Talent Based, Egocentric, Product-Centered