The grant from the Radcliffe Trust has enabled Drake Music Scotland to have both weekly in-person rehearsals and live performances for disabled musicians. With rehearsals and performances returning to live, in-person events, participants have been able to increase their socialisation again after the detrimental effects of staying isolated during lockdown. They were able to take part in sessions with their friends and tutors again, as well as showcase their work with live performances. This allowed them to engage with audiences, increase their communication skills, and feel like “proper” musicians again.
These funds allowed a thriving live concert schedule for participants to take part in and to create goals through rehearsals.
The responses to and effects of having more social interaction from rehearsals and the ability to improve not just musical skills but the confidence to be able to share them in a public space has also been beneficial.
Comments from an attendee and local music professor: “I had not been to a Drake Music Scotland event before, so I enjoyed the friendly presentation and useful context on the pieces, the players and the composers. As someone who works with music technologies, it was very exciting to see how the musicians and the team have developed such a wide variety of modes of engagement with sound and music for performance and composition. This is something that I plan to feed into my teaching at the University of Edinburgh, to engage students with, and to engage with in my own research.”
