Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has been giving concerts since its foundation in 1893. Today it gives upwards of 130 concerts a year from its home base in Poole and during the summer months there is a series of hugely popular outdoor concerts.  In addition to the main symphony orchestra, the orchestra’s ensembles perform for local communities across the region, including Kokoro which specialises in contemporary music. The BSO has a proud heritage of principal conductors from its founder Sir Dan Godfrey, to Constantin Silvestri, Sir Charles Groves, Andrew Litton, Yakov Kreizberg and currently Marin Alsop. It has also held special relationships with composers including Sir Michael Tippett, Henri Dutilleux and currently Stephen McNeff who hold the title of Composer-in-the-House. 

The BSO performs regularly in the UK's and the world's premier venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the Musikverein, Vienna. Future tours are planned to the Czech Republic and France and the Netherlands. The BSO has a fine pedigree of over 400 internationally acclaimed recordings, many of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards and have won prizes. In the past five years alone the orchestra has made over 80 CDs.  The orchestra also has a nationally recognised education and community department which organises participatory workshops and projects across the region, particularly in association with those local authorities which fund the orchestra. Apart from BSO musicians undertaking this work when they are not rehearsing and performing, the department has a full-time Community Musician, Andy Baker, whose work is renowned throughout the UK. 

Dartington Plus

Dartington Plus is one of three national centres of excellence in music and the arts which are core funded by Arts Council England, alongside The Sage Gateshead and Aldeburgh.
Dartington Plus is centred on a unique and exciting partnership between The Dartington Hall Trust, Dartington College of Arts and King Edward VI Community College (KEVICC). It delivers a wide and eclectic portfolio with a strong and very natural emphasis on music and arts education, performance and produce and enterprise in all its many forms, benefiting from the skills and experience of each of the partners.

Federation of Music Services, South West

The Federation of Music Services was established in 1996 and currently has a membership of 147 music services. They work closely with the DfES (formerly the DfE) OfSTED and the QCA as well as fellow music organisations such as MEC and NAME.

Wells Cathedral School

Patron :  HRH The Prince of Wales
HMC Co-educational Boarding and Day

An inspiring education in a beautiful and musically alive environment as a brilliant foundation for life.

Established in 909 to educate choristers, Wells can claim to have been a Specialist Music School for about 1100 years.  For more than 30 years the School has been part of the DfES Music and Dance Scheme, teaching many of the country’s finest young musicians.  The architecture and physical environment create a tremendous backdrop and inspiration for the students.

Wells, a co-educational 3-18 boarding and day community, offers an extensive academic and co-curriculum, and arranges individualised programmes for its specialist musicians.  There are approximately 1600 music lessons a week, 150 concerts a year and over 80 members of staff involved in the delivery of music. 

The specialist musicians enjoy not only international standard music making, but the breadth which the whole school offers.  Many musicians leave Wells to continue their studies at conservatoires in the UK and abroad, others opt for academic studies at university.

Wiltshire Music Centre

The Wiltshire Music Centre in Bradford on Avon is a unique contemporary music education facility with good access, nine flexible workshop spaces and a first class 300 seat concert hall. The Centre is owned and run by an independent charitable trust and, since opening 9 years ago, has become one of the country’s most successful regional arts lottery projects attracting over 62,000 visitors a year.

Innovative education and community work runs alongside a year round programme of high quality public concerts. These embrace classical, jazz, folk and world music traditions and feature artists of international standing as well as talented young musicians and community groups – all celebrated equitably on the same platform.

Department for Children, Schools and Families: Skills, Music and Dance Scheme

Our Principal supporter.

PRS Foundation

The PRS Foundation for New Music (PRSF) is the UK's largest independent funder purely for new music of any genre. Its main aims are to stimulate and support the creation and performance of new music in the UK, and to help this reach a wide audience. The Foundation provides essential core support for creators, performers and producers of new music and underpins exciting musical developments. This is achieved through its own funding schemes and partnerships with other organisations.