This year’s winner of the ‘Outstanding Musical Initiative’ in the 2021 Music and Drama Education Awards has joined the line-up for Big Give match-funding this week.
The London Music Fund (LMF), a charity established 10 years ago to enable children in under-served communities to access high-quality music education, has been included in The Big Give’s Christmas Challenge. Setting themselves a target of £28,000, the charity hopes to raise this by 7 December and if it succeeds, the amount will be doubled by The Big Give.
The money will enable young Londoners from low-income families to access instrumental lessons, join ensembles, receive mentoring and performance opportunities through the charity’s award-winning scholarship programme. The programme gives young people up to four years of support to hire instruments and attend playing days at London performance venues.
London Music Fund has the Mayor of London as its patron and works through the 32 Music Education Hubs across the city. As the charity states,
‘There is a huge gulf in opportunity for instrumental learning in the UK; only 12% of the most deprived schools have any kind of orchestra, compared to 85% of independent schools (BPI, 2018). We aim to address this significant gap and focus on the middle ground between first musical experiences and high musical achievement. LMF’s founders recognised that what is often missing in UK music education are the structures & funding to support young people through the journey between these poles.’
‘Our vision is that every child who demonstrates musical ability and commitment to learning an instrument is given the opportunity to develop their potential.’
