Making Music INCLUDE Project

GBRT was excited to have been selected as one of four pilot groups for Making Music's 18-month project to look at ways to improve inclusion in leisure time music groups.

What was INCLUDE?

Funded by Arts Council England, INCLUDE aimed to help member groups in Levelling Up for Culture Places in England connect with new members of their community and include a wider diversity of people in their normal activities. Diversity means including the widest range of people from our community and recognising, respecting and celebrating each other’s differences. This includes a broad range of identities such as ethnicity, disability, neurodiversity, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic background. GBRT was one of four groups selected to take part in the pilot project which ran for 18 months to March 2025. Learning from the project was shared with all of Making Music's member groups. Our involvement in the project focussed on our instrumental groups - GBRT Carnival Drums, GBRT Flute Choir and GBRT Orchestra - but the lessons were applied to all of our activities.

Getting started

The first phase of the project was to get a better understanding of the demographics of our current membership compared to our local area. We asked members to complete an anonymous survey and compared the results to the most recent census data for South Leicestershire and North Northamptonshire. We found that our membership was broadly representative of the general population but the main groups that were underrepresented being 20-35 year olds and men. GBRT's trustees had a very helpful session with Making Music's project lead Elizabeth Palmer to discuss the results and start to develop an action plan for the project. We decided to focus on the following areas:

Developing a strategy to ensure that all our activities are as inclusive as possible, such as setting up ‘buddy’ schemes in our ensembles to make new members feel welcome, reviewing the accessibility of our communications and website, and asking members if there’s anything we can do to improve access to rehearsals and resources.
Encouraging more people to get involved in music making by raising the profile of our activities in North Northamptonshire, looking at ways to encourage more men and 20–35-year-olds to get involved in our choirs and ensembles, and promoting the mental health and social benefits of music.
Reviewing our online and written communications to ensure that they are accessible.
Extending our activities into North Northamptonshire.

Actions taken

Attending Making Music webinars:

Introducing INCLUDE online event
Access and inclusion for music groups - making a start
Access and inclusion solutions for event organisers
Conversations about inclusion: blind and partially-sighted members
Conversations about inclusion: why an open door is not enough
Welcome new people: building diversity and inclusion
Conversations about inclusion: music and autism.

Reviewing our online and written communications to ensure that they are accessible:

Offering a text only digital version of programmes for use with screen readers and online translation services as an alternative to printed programmes.
Reviewing our website to ensure that it meets accessibility standards.
Replacing PDFs on our website with more accessible formats such as HTML and Word documents.
Adding additional information about accessibility at our rehearsal and concert venues to our website and publicity materials.
Making sheet music available in alternative formats for members who need it.
Adding an open question to our registration forms and booking forms to ask whether members have any access needs.

Extending our activities into North Northamptonshire:

we organised a session in Corby for local music groups to discuss ways to encourage men to get involved in music making, with speaker Will Prideaux from Peterborough Sings.
GBRT Carnival Drums performances at Kettering's Christmas Market in December 2023, 2024 and 2025 and as well as other events in Kettering.
GBRT Carnival Drums and Flute Choir took part in an event for Make Music Day 2024 in and around Corby Cube.
GBRT Community Choir performances with Seagrave Singers in Rothwell in June 2025 and October 2026.

Developing a clearer identity for our groups to help them to attract new members:

GBRT Orchestra were supported by Making Music to trial a process to help groups to develop a clearer identity and purpose. We gathered views and feedback from the MD and members via an anonymous survey and face-to-face discussions about why members chose this group to be involved with, what their expectations were around performances and repertoire and who they felt we should be targeting for recruitment. Elizabeth then helped us to identify the main themes and refine them into options for members to choose from. One of the main challenges we considered was how to be inclusive and keep our entry requirements as broad as possible whilst also meeting the needs of more advanced players and being able to take part in performances. The solution that we have adopted is to offer simplified parts for less confident players to enable them to enjoy playing in the ensemble without finding it too challenging.

Special projects to attract new members who may not have considered music making before:

Men Sing for Movember project ran from September to December 2024 to encourage men to have a go at choral singing. 40 men took part in the project and nine joined our Community Choir when it finished.
We were very grateful to receive funding from Howard Watson Symington Memorial Charity to make a video to promote the mental health benefits of getting involved with community music groups. The video was filmed from March to May 2024 and launched at our 20th anniversary concert on 29th June 2024. The videographer also provided us with footage of our activities to use on our website.

Making Music INCLUDE Project

What was INCLUDE?

Getting started

Actions taken

Further reading