Supporting youth voice with Sound Connections

Credit: Bell Caspi Photography

Sound Connections provides a platform for youth voice and participation, training and professional development opportunities for young people, and supports the music education sector to do the same. We caught up with their Co-Director, Liz Coomb, who gave us more details about the range of their work and shared how Music Mark members can get involved.

Sound Connections exists to create change. Our mission is to ensure that all children and young people can experience music and creative opportunities that are relevant to them, and responsive to their needs in a changing world.

We are London-based with a national and international reach, and have over 20 years’ experience supporting organisations, practitioners, and young people in the music and creative sector.

Our work is split into three interconnecting strands:

Youth Voice & Participation

Wired4Music live jam session at Rich Mix (2023).

We collaborate with young people and place them at the heart of decision-making. Through our flagship youth network, Wired4Music, we support a diverse community of over 1,000 young creatives through:

• Providing young people with training and paid development opportunities such as our Assistant Producer intern programme, our Event Producers scheme, our Wired4Music Associates programme, and as co-Producers of our annual flagship event, Inclusive Practice In Action.
• Our Generate funding programme, supporting young musicians and creatives to develop and deliver their own projects whilst receiving mentorship from our team.
• Hosting WIRED UP, our monthly live music showcase event at Rich Mix – young people are offered bursaries, mentoring, performance opportunities, a safe space to network with peers, and paid work experience, working alongside external grassroots music development partners. If you are working with 16-25 year olds and would like to showcase your organisation’s talent, please sign up here.
• Offering 1-2-1 mentoring and supporting young people into the creative sector whether that’s as a freelancer, setting up their own work, signposting them to relevant opportunities and funding, or into employment with organisations such as ACE, Music for Youth, PRSF, the Tate and the National Theatre.
• Our young trustees programme, supporting two Wired4Music members to join the Sound Connections board every two years.
• Platforming the work and successes of young people within our community, and highlighting relevant opportunities in via our monthly newsletter.

Watch the video recap of the latest WIRED UP event:

Training & Professional Development

 We equip music and creative practitioners and the wider workforce with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to be inclusive, relevant, and engaging in their work. We do this by:

• Providing training in areas such as mental health, inclusive and anti-racist practice, working with children with additional needs, trauma-informed practice, youth voice, co-producing with young people and more.
• Hosting the London Early Years Music Network and Youth Voice Network, which offer safe, supportive spaces for practitioners to share best practice, their experiences, ask questions and connect with their peers.
• Our annual Inclusive Practice in Action gathering bringing together 100s of practitioners each year to investigate and learn about different areas of inclusion.
• Our Innovate investment programme, supporting new project ideas each year.
• Delivering the Emerging Music Leader Scheme (Early Childhood Music).
• A year-round mentoring programme.

Sector Support

Credit: Bell Caspi Photography

We support and challenge the music education sector to innovate and evolve. We support music organisations, and those in the wider creative and cultural sector, through:

• Activate, our investment programme for Music Hubs & Services across England to develop their youth voice and participation work.
• Action research – our Wired4Music Associates are currently developing a podcast on pathways for young people, and how to improve access for neurodiverse people in music.
• Sharing our youth voice and participation expertise through resources such as the Youth Voice & Participation Handbook, delivering bespoke and public training, and supporting organisations to develop this work within their own organisations.
• Our consultancy service, where we work with over 25+ partners every year supporting them to develop their programmes, strategy, evaluation, impact, inclusion and participation. Here we work with Music Hubs, Cultural Education Partnerships and music, arts and heritage organisations such as Anthem Wales, Arts Council England, BBC Children in Need, Bristol Beacon, British Council, English Heritage, English National Opera, Live Music Now, Music Generation Ireland, National Open Youth Orchestra, National Youth Arts Wales, Wigmore Hall and many more. Read more here.

How you can connect with us and why you should:

At Sound Connections, we are thoroughly committed to supporting the Music Education sector to thrive – we’re here to help you achieve your aims and ambitions, and to develop and deliver a dynamic, high-impact and inclusive offer for children and young people across the country.

Ways to get involved:

1. Sign up to our newsletter to stay in touch with us directly here.
2. Come along to a training session, and use this code to receive 10% off any training in the 2024-25 academic year: SCMM10
3. Have a look at our Music Education Support Offer here, and get in touch with Alison Porter to arrange a chat about how we can support you – no matter how big or small your project is we’d love to hear from you – alison@sound-connections.org.uk