Hello and welcome to our new quarterly updates from our Director

By Liz Coomb, Director – Sound Connections

This is my first piece since becoming Director in November 2025 – where has the time gone? We’ve had a fair few changes in leadership over the past two years at Sound Connections, so the past 10 months have been about settling into the role, steadying the ship after a period of change and working with the team to achieve our goals and think about who we are and where we want to go as we move towards celebrating our 25th birthday in 2027.   

National work 

One of our key strategic aims within our current 2025-2028 plan is to solidify our position as a national organisation, through partnership and collaboration with the hope of helping to build a more connected and supportive music ecosystem for all children and young people.   

Sound Connections was originally set-up as the London Youth Music Action Zone back in 2002, so we’ve always been London based, but over the years our work has organically grown to have a national reach. This was reflected in us becoming an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) in 2023, and in July this year we were honoured (and surprised!) to be name-checked in relation to this in the Government’s ‘Turn It Up: Our Plan for Music’:  

“…an array of NPOs and National Lottery Project Grant-funded organisations provide entry level and progression opportunities for children and young people at all levels of musical ability. For example, Brighter Sound in Manchester supports emerging music creators in carving unique paths into the music industry, while…organisations like Sound Connections and Youth Music deliver youth-led education and professional training opportunities for the next generation of industry leaders.” 

Having worked in a national role previously, I think that to truly establish ourselves as a national organisation, it’s not enough to reach people solely online – we need to deliver in-person work outside of London. But this needs to be done through meaningful and long-term local partnerships, not parachuting in.  

Last summer, Laura Brewis and Eddie Scott from We Make Culture – a brilliant organisation based in Sunderland who we’ve had the pleasure of supporting over the past six years through our development programmes and peer-mentoring – visited our Wired UP event in South London to do some research. 291 miles apart, with the same goal – to support young people from all backgrounds to pursue their music-related ambitions.  

We got talking about them bringing a bunch of their young people down for a gig sometime, and then we thought – well, why do you have to come to London? Why don’t we come to you?  

A year after that conversation, we’re really excited to announce that we will be delivering two of our biggest events in Sunderland over the next six months:  

• Wired UP North – in October ‘26 and February ‘27 half-terms at multiple venues 

• Inclusive Practice in Action (IPIA) – our annual gathering, at the incredible Culture House Sunderland on 18 March 2027. Bookings will open soon, so put the date in your diary and keep an eye out…  

Team changes

Please join us in welcoming the following new members of our team: 

• Kay Stott, our new Early Years Lead 

• Mazvita Zhou, our new Trainee 

• Shakira Walters, back as our Cultivate Project Lead, and 

• Ujwal Karmokar, Millie McCabe and Nicholas Ireland, our new young Trustees.  

And a fond farewell to:  

• Vanessa Stansall – who has been our Early Years Lead since 2021 is off to focus on her work with Creative Futures and her PhD, and 

• Emily Perryman – who has been with us for *exactly* seven years is off to join Help Musicians UK! Congratulations Emily!  

We will miss you both. Read more about our new team members and Trustees here.

Development programme recipients

Each year we support several practitioners, grassroots organisations and Music Hubs through our development programmes – Innovate, Activate and Cultivate – with all recipients receiving a bursary to support their work, mentoring, training and support during and after their projects. 

The purpose of these programmes is to test new ideas and models, build capacity, and find new ways of meeting the needs of children and young people across the country – with the learning then shared with the wider sector to inspire and strengthen different approaches to supporting and working with children and young people.  

Our Activate programme for Music Hubs, focussing on Early Years for 26-27, will be supporting:  

• Haringey Music Hub & Groundswell Arts to support 12 early years settings across Haringey, Islington and Enfield.  

You can read more about their project here.

Our Innovate programme for individuals and grassroots organisations will be supporting:  

• The Music Garden, led by Beth Billington, in Barrow-in-Furness 

• Sound Assembly Alumni Leadership Pathway, led by Kensaye Russell and Sound Assembly CIC, Lambeth, London 

• Beyond the Postcard, led by Leroy Mentor and The Making Place Bath, Bath & North East Somerset 

• The LIFT Orchestra: Co-designing Accessible Orchestra Experiences, led by Stuart Grimshaw & Jane Grimshaw, Headsoup Ltd, Newham, London.  

Read more about the projects here.  

Our Cultivate programme for grassroots music organisations, focussing on community building and strengthening their organisation, will be supporting:  

• Brink Productions, Manchester 

• Communities Unite, Nottingham 

• Gateshead Music Trust, Gateshead 

• Overgrown Audio, East and West Midlands 

• Scrapyard Studios CIC, Merseyside 

• We Make Culture, Sunderland 

Read more about the organisations and programme here.

And finally… 

If you made it this far – thank you! We’d love to see you at an event soon, and if you need some advice or mentoring from the team, get in touch at info@sound-connections.org.uk  

Upcoming events: 

• 10am-12pm, Thursday 1 October, online – Music Education Futures: Part 2 – Being a Freelance Practitioners, Sustainability and Wellbeing:  

• 11am-1pm, Tuesday 6 October, online – Youth Voice in Music Hubs – Activate 25/26 sharing.