Category: Amateo Members

AMATEO MEMBER:
MAKING MUSIC (UK)

Member country: United Kingdom
Contact person: Barbara Eifler (Chief Executive)

Who?: Barbara Eifler is the Chief Executive of Making Music. Making Music is the UK organisation for leisure-time music groups, with over 3,500 member groups throughout the UK. Our members are choral societies, gospel choirs, community choirs, amateur orchestras, brass bands, jazz ensembles, folk groups, ukulele groups, drumming circles, handbell ringers, samba groups, hobby rock bands, etc.

What?: We support our members and the leisure-time music sector in 3 ways:

• Practical help for running a group. Most of our members are run by volunteers in their spare time, and they want to focus on making music, so we help them run the group: we have an insurance scheme, we help them with guidance on, for example, safeguarding for young people, contracts with conductors, marketing their group, setting up a website, organising their finances, and lots more.
  
• Artistic support: we have a project called ‘Adopt a Composer’ which has funding to match an emerging composer with one of our member groups for a year; they work together and the resulting piece of music is recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio 3; we also have a selection of young professional artists and singers that our members can book with a subsidy, so they can play and sing alongside the stars of tomorrow, at an affordable cost; and there are other artistic development projects and opportunities.
  
• Lobbying and advocacy: we respond to government consultations and campaign on issues which would make it difficult for our groups to continue or to do well; topics here in the UK include music education (young people and adults), music libraries, licensing for children in performances, and more.

Why join Amateo?: It is always good to connect to other similar networks and learn from what they are doing and how they operate. We are particularly happy that this is an affordable membership – we are only a small charity with no public funding. If meetings are in Europe in cities with cheap flights and hotels, then that is very good for us… Please only meet near Easyjet or Ryanair airports!

International connections give you a new perspective on what is happening in your own country; it can be really good for our members, too, to learn about how leisure-time music works in other countries; and music is a universal language – it’s an opportunity to connect, in a world full of divisions.

Future hopes?: It’s the people versus the machine. We are all artists, we are all musicians. Never mind what our politicians are up to – with the internet, we can just connect to each other and build the joy of making music in communities.

Interested in joining Amateo’s European network? Find out more!

AMATEO MEMBER:
DAS KOMPETENZZENTRUM FUR KULTURELLE BILDUNG IM ALTER UND INKLUSION / CENTRE OF COMPETENCE FOR CREATIVE AGEING AND INCLUSIVE ARTS (KUBIA)

Member country: Germany
Contact person: Janine Hüsch (Communications & Public Relations)

Symposium ALL IN: Ästhetik und Methoden der inklusiven Darstellenden Künste Eine gemeinsame Veranstaltung von: Kompetenzzentrum für Kulturelle Bildung im Alter und Inklusion (kubia) und Un-Label, Performing Arts Company, in Kooperation mit Sommerblut Kulturfestival e.V.

Schrei mich an // INCLU:CITY // Regie Marita Ragonese

Who? KUBIA is a professional forum and service platform on all issues relating to cultural and arts-based activities for older and/or disabled persons. It is based in Remscheid, Germany. Our target groups are artists, arts facilitators, care professionals, staff of cultural institutions and local authorities.

What? KUBIA provides information, training, networking opportunities and advice on all issues relating to cultural and arts-based activities and lifelong learning. Our aim is to raise awareness of the important role of cultural participation at all ages by developing trend-setting concepts and innovative models.

We focus on professionalising arts-related educational practices for older people and persons with disabilities, promoting inter-generational dialogue through the arts, developing arts-based programmes for the frail and people with dementia, promoting participation and volunteer work in arts and culture in later life as well as developing intercultural and inclusive schemes. KUBIA also runs a forum for theatre by older adults in North Rhine-Westphalia (Theatergold).

Why join Amateo? The philosophy of the Amateo network is very much in line with our conviction that artistic and creative activities and cultural participation are important keys to social inclusion, quality of life and wellbeing. We look forward to working with like-minded partners on an international level.

We appreciate very much being part of Amateo as a European cultural network since we benefit and learn from the mutual exchange and the co-operation for a common cause. International co-operation gives us new inspiration, strengthens our reputation on national level and helps us to improve our work.

Future hopes? Together with the Amateo network we would like to ensure that the artistic and cultural participation, especially by the elderly and people with disabilities, plays an important role in the agenda-setting of social and cultural policies in Europe. For this reason, we wish Amateo to be a fast-growing and strong network for the promotion of participatory arts in Europe.

Interested in joining Amateo’s European network? Find out more!