MAKING MUSIC UK

As the membership organisation for voluntary music in the UK, Making Music brings together musicians and music groups of all genres and abilities. Through this combined strength, we support, connect and champion everyone who makes, performs and presents music on a voluntary basis.

Our 3,000 member groups range from small chamber choirs to full-scale symphony orchestras, with sitar ensembles, brass bands, handbell ringers and more in between. These voluntary groups offer invaluable lifelong music education opportunities for their communities in every corner of the country. Among the services we offer are a range of artistic support and development programmes, which link the UK’s amateur music scene to individuals and organisations in the professional sector.

Each year, our Award for Young Concert Artists picks the cream of the country’s young classical music performers and offers them subsidised engagements with Making Music member groups. The young musicians get vital real-world performing experience, while the groups are able to book top flight soloists for their concerts at an affordable price.

Our annual Adopt a Composer scheme, run in partnership with Sound and Music and funded by PRS for Music Foundation, enables six of our member groups to ‘adopt’ an emerging composer, who will then write a piece of music especially for their chosen group over the course of a year.

These are just a small selection of the ways in which we work to support our members and voluntary music. We’re here to help everyone flourish in their music making.