Winning when you’re singing

Making Music is the largest umbrella arts organisation in the UK supporting and championing almost 3,000 amateur music groups, representing around 250,000 amateur musicians and music lovers. Although we started life as a classical music organisation, our membership now includes everything from choral societies to samba bands, symphony orchestras to folk festivals.
We lobby on behalf of our members on issues they care about. Although roughly 90% of our members are adult groups, they would not survive without continued music education in schools. Additionally, they are themselves of course providing music education within their communities. It’s no surprise, therefore, that we also spend a lot of time lobbying on behalf of music education. The past ten years have seen a great surge in music education with the success of programmes such as Sing Up and the Music Manifesto. Arguably, all of this work means that music education is in the best state that it has ever been; all these educated children need somewhere to go once they have left school, and this is where our members make a huge contribution by providing adult musical opportunities.
 

These initiatives, along with TV shows such as ‘The X Factor’, ‘Over the Rainbow’, ‘Last Choir Standing’, and more recently ‘Glee’ have created a fantastic climate for singing. Whatever your views on the shows themselves, it is impossible to deny their wider impact: we all seem to want to sing now – or perhaps, we feel more confident about singing having seen ‘ordinary people’ have a go. This is just the right climate in which to create ‘123sing!’ – our first ever national singing weekend created in partnership with Classic FM. We wanted to capitalise on the momentum around singing and get more people involved and enjoying the many health and social benefits of singing in groups. The event brings together 15 major singing and music organisations for children, adults and workplaces, and creates opportunities for children as well as adults, absolute beginners as well as experienced singers.
123sing! invites everyone to put on, join or enjoy a singing event. Participants are invited to raise money for Classic FM’s charity Music Makers, which funds music education and therapy projects for disadvantaged children and adults. We already have an array of events on our interactive map ranging from a ‘cycle and sing’ along the Thames towpath to a requiem in a nuclear bunker. Many groups are using the weekend as an opportunity to open up their rehearsals to encourage people to come and have a go in a safe environment.