Gone in the Air
In 2015, our previous incarnation NYMAZ launched Gone in the Air, a campaign to improve out-of-school music education so that children in rural England have equal life chances.
Since 2015, a lot has changed. The past eight years have seen widespread changes in society, with factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and challenging economic circumstances having a huge impact on many areas of life, including the music education sector. This major new report looks at these challenges, eight years later.
It is clear that the current musical landscape might be different, but many of the challenges identified by the original research, around delivering better music education opportunities for young people in rural England, remain. This new research demonstrates that there has been more progress in some areas than others. For example, the pandemic accelerated the use of digital solutions to musical participation, bringing work pioneered through projects such as Connect: Resound into the mainstream. Yet in other areas, such as policy change or the availability of quality musical progression opportunities for those in rural areas, change has been slow or non-existent.
The report provides 15 recommendations for funders, and 10 recommendations for music delivery organisations. We hope that this report will be a catalyst for change.
The programming and research that informed this report were conducted in our previous incarnation, NYMAZ. Since our relaunch as AMP in spring 2024, this report’s research will continue to inform our work around rural isolation. This project was funded by Youth Music.