Choral composer, Chris Hutchings, reflects on the difference that choirs can make to protecting our planet
Singing in a choir is about the most environmentally friendly possible way of performing music: we just need our voices and maybe a few bits of paper.
Now in their second year, the Making Music awards will feature a brand new category for 2021: Group Hero!
The Group Hero Award is for an individual, small team or committee who have gone above and beyond to keep their leisure-time music group together through the challenges of 2020. Now, we're asking you to vote for your favourite Group Hero. The winner will be announced at the Making Music AGM and awards ceremony on Wednesday 8 September.
In a new diary entry for Adopt a Composer 2019/20, Laura Shipsey recounts how her composition for City of Bristol Brass Band took a different turn in the wake of Covid.
The Creative Lives Awards - formerly the Epic Awards - are an annual celebration of the achievements of voluntary and community-led creativity. These awards are particularly popular among our membership, with many leisure-time music groups having been nominated and won prizes over the years!
Jen Beardsmore, secretary of Brewood Singers, outlines the steps her group took to make a safe return to in-person music making.
Now that the government has lifted the majority of lockdown restrictions, some music groups are starting to think about how to keep going and ensure that their members stay engaged. To help support our member groups with these concerns, we have pulled together a list of some of our relevant services.
Following the government announcement on 12 July, England will move to step 4 of the roadmap on 19 July when most restrictions will be lifted.
As of 13 July, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have not updated their guidance to reflect the move to step 4, however we expect that they will before 19 July. Following Secretary of State Oliver Dowden’s announcement on 6 July, we expect that as of 19 July non-professional music groups will be able to:
All four nations of the UK are starting to open up again after lockdown, each with a different roadmap and timeline.
Throughout May and June leisure-time music groups can expect to be rehearsing - and even performing - outdoors and in some cases indoors across the UK. However these routes out of lockdown are provisional only, with risk assessments and mitigations attached to each stage.
Making Music’s free coronavirus guidance tool reflects what the latest rules mean for leisure-time music groups in each of the four nations of the UK.
This consultation by the Home Office on a proposed ‘Martyn’s law’ – named after one of the victims of the Manchester Arena attack – would apply across all four nations of the UK and mean that any venue with a capacity of 100+ would have to assess the risk of terrorist threat in their locality and implement appropriate mitigating measures.
The government is currently consulting on potential new legislation, the Protect Duty, which is about making publicly accessible buildings, and those who operate them, legally bound to assess and mitigate potential risks from terrorism.
The intention is to make the public realm safer and to prevent tragedies like the Manchester Arena attack. It is therefore intended to help the public feel safer when they attend events or activity in publicly accessible buildings and spaces.
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