Adopt a Music Creator 2023 pairings revealed

Making Music is thrilled to announce the selected 2023 pairings for Adopt a Music Creator, the long-running new music creation project.

The Adopt a Music Creator project, formerly known as Adopt a Composer project, has inspired over 120 wide breadths of works and performances by music creators and leisure-time music groups since its beginning in 2000. The collaborative project is run by Making Music in partnership with Sound and Music, the national organisation for new music, and funded by the PRS Foundation and Philip and Dorothy Green Trust.

The project pairs Making Music members with an emerging music creator for up to a year, leading to a premiere, recording and radio broadcast. Alongside the usual pairing of one group and one creator, two group pairings match one music creator – newly introduced is the Choose a Creator Pathway where a group holds an open competition in their local area to find a music creator.

Last year was a massive success resulting in some truly exceptional projects – a piece inspired by colours of paint, a music group experimenting with timbres and textures and a choral work capturing the wild and gentle nature of Exmoor are just a few examples.

This year we are delighted to reveal that there are seven pairings, each promising to be ambitious in scope.

Here’s to another year of exciting collaborations and outstanding new music!

The Adopt a Music Creator 2023 pairings are as follows:

  • Peter Falconer and Band of the Surrey Yeomanry (mentored by Fraser Trainer)
  • Joshua Kaye and Orchestra of the City (mentored by Fraser Trainer)
  • Anselm McDonnell and Northern Ireland Concert Band mentored by (Seán Doherty)
  • Collaborate pathway: Robin Fiedler - Camden Brass Band and Regent Brass Band (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)
  • Collaborate pathway: Georgina MacDonell Finlayson - Shenstone Roses and Shenstone Singers (mentored by Lynne Plowman)
  • Fraz Ireland and Blackheath Choir (mentored by Colin Riley)

Barbara Eifler, Chief Executive of Making Music, said:

‘I look forward once again to some inspiring, surprising and innovative projects from these pairings. The projects are incredibly collaborative and thus often a new experience for the music creators and empowering for the members of the music group, to become part of the creative process. Here’s to some amazing new pieces in 2023!’

Will Dutta, Co-Head of Artist Development at Sound and Music, said:

‘This wonderful programme has a significant track record of supporting composers and music creators in facilitating community work and collaboration. It also provides a hugely valuable opportunity to build a sustained relationship with a music group and this inevitably leads to inventive and joyful new music making. I wish the cohort every success!’

Find out more about Adopt a Music Creator

Learn more about our partner organisations via their website - Sound and Music and PRS Foundation.