Our Programmes

We bring music and creativity to those who wouldn’t usually get to experience high quality music making. We deliver our year-round Education Programme and Adult Community Programme in mainstream and special schools and colleges, and adult community and residential centers across Greater Manchester. 

Each of our sessions is tailored to the needs and interests of the participants and delivered by our experienced SEND music practitioners, who encourage ambitious music making in all our groups. We make sure the content is relevant for our participants, so if the group would like to create a track in their favourite genre, work towards a performance in a professional venue or share it on the community radio station we will help to make this happen.

You’ll see that we refer to Assistive Music Technology or AMT quite a bit. AMT is technology that enables people with disabilities to have as much freedom in writing and performing their own music. We use AMT alongside traditional instruments such as guitars, keyboards, and drums to ensure that our sessions are accessible and enjoyable for everyone. We focus on our participant’s ability, not disability. 

We don’t just support our participants, we support those who work with them every day. By providing creative resources and termly tech development days, staff feel empowered to implement meaningful musical exercises in their own sessions when we’re not there. We are also committed to upskilling the practitioners we work with, with termly tech development days to collectively learn and play with new AMT and celebrate the wins and troubleshoot any challenges in delivery. 

“It’s like the lights go on when he’s with you! We never see him so focused all week, when I say it’s OmniMusic day, he signs ‘happy’”

Teacher, Heaton School

We listen with respect, openness and empathy to those with lived experiences of disability and our Technology Programme commits to acting on these needs and to creating solutions. We hold space for a community of creative technologists and musicians using Assistive Music Technology, which includes hack sessions, networking and prototyping. Our creative technologists are actively researching open access, low-cost AMT as we want music to be a part of everyone’s life.