Introducing Helen Minshall – Visiting Teacher of the Year!

In September 2024, Classic FM revealed the winners of their 2024 Music Teacher of the Year Awards. With five different categories, the awards celebrate the exceptional work of music teachers who inspire young people across the UK. We spoke to Helen Minshall, winner of the Visiting Teacher award, to find out more about her work and her plans following the award. 

I’m delighted to be this year’s winner of the Classic FM Music Teacher of the Year Award in the Visiting Teacher category! 

I live in Astley, Greater Manchester and work in the North West of England, mainly in Lancashire and the surrounding area. I have been teaching in schools both as a classroom music teacher and a peripatetic brass specialist for the last 40 years. I have a busy freelance portfolio career, teaching and performing. I work with Brass Bands England, Lancashire Music Service and I run my own company, Minshall Music LTD which delivers weekly music lessons in schools in the Greater Manchester Area. 

Since January 2021 I have worked with the Brass Bands England Foundations Team as a Youth Development Brass Specialist, which presents some wonderful opportunities to travel all over the North of England, delivering workshops and large scale projects helping to introduce young people to the wonderful world of brass music.  

For the last ten years I have worked with Lancashire Music Service as Musical Director of the Lancashire Youth Brass Band. It has been a great pleasure over the last few years to build this band into one of the country’s finest youth brass bands, and to see players progress to conservatoires, and to play in adult bands and orchestras of the highest level. I also enjoy being Co-Director of HONK! The Lancashire Youth Street Band. This is a unique ensemble, playing all types of popular music on the streets, all from memory with dance moves. We have loads of fun playing at parades and carnivals! 

Minshall Music LTD is our thriving family business which I run with my daughter and son in law, Samantha and Neil Raisbeck. We deliver weekly individual, small group and whole class brass lessons and bespoke curriculum music lessons at a number of schools in Bolton, Salford and Wigan, and termly workshops in schools further afield.  

My favourite thing about being a visiting music teacher is seeing the joy on the faces of the children, and hearing them squeal with delight, excited for their music lesson when they see me walking across the playground and into the classroom. I particularly love delivering one off workshops and seeing the magical look on the faces of the children when they pick up a brass instrument for the first time, and make their first sound.  

I also love visiting new areas, especially rural schools where musical opportunities are sometimes more limited, and in the last four years my work with Brass Bands England has taken me to so many interesting places including Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Sheffield, Keswick and West Cumbria. One project in particular began with brass workshops in school in the North East, and culminated in 300 children performing on stage at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music! What a joy that was! 

I was so excited when I found out from Helen Robertson, my line manager at Lancashire Music Service, that I’d been nominated for the Classic FM award. I couldn’t believe it! An email followed from Classic FM saying that I was a finalist, and asking me to be available to take an early morning phone call on Tuesday 24th September, in case I’d won. When that call came, I was over the moon! My lifetime of music teaching flashed before me. None of this could ever have been possible without the excellent start I had in music, and the wonderful teachers who taught and encouraged me at school in Ayrshire, Scotland, then at college in Salford. Music teachers have the power to change a child’s life in so many ways, and I feel very privileged to be working in this profession and doing something I love. 

I plan to spend the prize money on instruments, adding to the set of pTrumpets and pBones which I use for visiting schools to deliver workshops, and providing a set of pTrumpets and pBones for the new Lancashire Music Service Mobile Classroom, which will reach more children than ever! 

Thank you to all my colleagues at Brass Bands England, Lancashire Music Service and Minshall Music LTD for their constant support, and particular thanks to Helen Robertson, the inspirational Deputy Head of Lancashire Music Service for having faith in me and nominating me for this award!