Music for Education & Wellbeing

 A hate crime and a near death experience caused Ami Gaston to re-evaluate her life and future. She now works internationally to promote healing and wellbeing through music and activism. She’s worked with refugees and families through organisations such as the US government and the United Nations. She also has a great story to tell about performing for the Dalai Lama. 

 In this episode, I talk with Serona Elton, from the University of Miami and the Mechanical Licensing Collective; and Dr Oliver Morris, Head of Education and Skills at UK Music. We talked about their routes into the music industry, and the challenges and opportunities for young people – and their families - wanting to understand what roles they could pursue in music.  

 In this episode, I talk with Penny Osmond, workshop and choir leader, about her singing work with new mums who have perinatal mental health disorders. We discuss the first randomised control research in this area, led by Professors Rosie Perkins and Daisy Fancourt, which found that singing could relieve moderate to severe post-natal depression at double the rate of control groups. We also hear about Penny’s wider music and perinatal mental health programmes including Songs from Home – addressing social isolation in new mums through online songwriting, and Music at Heart, singing with mothers referred through a hospital. 

In this episode, I talk with Emma Supica, Education Coordinator for Artiphon, a music tech company that creates new instruments to enable everyone to be creative, with or without prior musical experience. It’s latest is the Orba, a palm-held instrument that can be used alone or connected to other technology. We talked about the importance of play in music; how the Orba is being used in education, wellbeing and social justice settings and can be adapted for different people and environments; and the value of participant and user voice in education and in tech. 

 In this episode, I talk with Mark Robinson, the founder of Rocksteady Music School, which brings in-school rock band lessons to primary schools across the UK. It’s a new model for music education that combines peripatetic tuition approaches with group rock band tuition and inclusive pedagogy, increasing children’s interest in and uptake of music lessons. Mark’s lightbulb moment was when he realised that children in his lunchtime band workshops were progressing faster than those in one-to-one lessons, and his mission ever since has been to get more children making music by choosing what they want to learn, and learning as part of a band. 

 In this episode, I talk with musicians Carl aka C. Roots, and Grace from Inhouse Records. Inhouse is an award-winning record label for change, working inside and outside of prisons with emerging musicians who are prisoners. The team work to highlight the creative potential of prisoners and to reduce reoffending, focusing on what's strong, not what's wrong.  They’re supported by a range of impressive partners and funders from the Universal Music Group to the Ministry of Justice, and have won awards for their social enterprise work 

In this episode, I talk with Sam Chaplin, community choir leader for The Choir With No Name, workshop leader, singer-songwriter, jazz trumpeter, pianist, composer and arranger. We discuss: how community choir leading is ‘caught rather than taught’; the four Cs of connection, confidence, congratulations and the catharsis of ‘singing it out and the song on Sam’s new album inspired by this; the value of peer mentors as part of advocating for the choir; music more central in everyone’s lives.

 In this episode, I talk with  Rachael Perrin, a co-founder of community music organisation, Soundcastle, which runs projects in the south of England, coaches and trains music practitioners across the UK, and has an online community to support them. We talk about bringing together the music and social care worlds and wanting to find ‘other uses for music’; their Musical Beacons work with families and People’s Music Collectives work with adults on a journey of mental health recovery; the crossovers between coaching, mentoring and community music; the importance of creative autonomy; and wellbeing, the thread that runs through everything from projects to collective decision-making.

 In this episode, I talk with head vocal coach for X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, Annabel Williams. Annabel talks about her route into vocal coaching, gives some insights into the support given to TV talent show contestants and shares some tips and advice for vocalists. She goes on to talk about her The Vocal Coach app for singers of all levels wanting to develop their voices, or use singing for fun and wellbeing 

In this episode, I’m talking with JB Rose who is a soul vocalist, recording artist, and vocal tutor at three charities (Heart and Soul, Clean Break Theatre Company and Second Wave Youth Arts where she’s also an Associate Director). JB has supported Chaka Khan, and worked with the likes of Coolio, Omar and Junior.  Alongside all of this she also has an impressive scriptwriting and songwriting career. I was particularly interested in her beginnings in youth arts, and the difference that’s made to her progression into the music industry.