Arco - Music for All is a charity very close to my heart, and is doing amazing things for access to music education. Founded by inspirational teacher and violinist Rosanne Jacobs in 2018, Arco provides accessible and high quality violin lessons in the Islington borough. Music education is a right not a privilege, and through its inclusive approach and the removal of financial barriers Arco opens up the opportunity to learn the violin to young people who otherwise wouldn't be able to.

To find out more about Arco - Music For All's work, take a look at their website: https://www.arcomusicforall.org

Here is some more information about the charity in their own words:

Background

Arco - Music for All was founded by Rosanne Jacobs in 2018, a violinist and teacher working in the Islington borough who saw a need and demand for accessible and high quality violin lessons.

Sessions are split by experience, enabling progression and matching the level of difficulty to a student's musical development. In the lessons, young people are taught through roughly following the Suzuki method's beginner books, topped up with a variety of other violin repertoire, to ensure a diverse repertoire that suits all student's needs and interests. Students receive individually assessed pointers at the end of each term, to provide a solid basis for continual musical and self-development.

Arco is at the forefront of encouraging Youth Voice within the sessions, designing events based on the young musicians' needs and wishes.

Aim & Ethos

Our overarching aim is to strengthen community and our session design welcomes young people from different backgrounds, creating one group who work together as equals.

We aim to enrich lessons by embedding the relevancy of music, with summer and winter concerts providing friends and families with the connection to their child's learning.

We also co-create events with professional musicians from diverse backgrounds, further demystifying corners of the classical world and helping to highlight how people from diverse backgrounds, including the Chineke! Orchestra and Braimah Kanneh-Mason, though often still underrepresented groups, make up the arts.

We organise community engagement sessions, to develop understanding of our participants' experience and allowing direct input into Arco's direction.

Who are our beneficiaries?

Many children who want to learn to play the violin in Islington cannot gain high quality teaching, due to cost or accessibility. Through surveys of our beneficiaries, we know that 80% of families indicate they have not found similar offers to Arco locally and 60% live in challenging circumstances.

We recruit young people through our termly youth voice workshops, social media, advertisement at local schools and community hubs and word of mouth, building an organic and diverse community.

What difference will your support make?

Support for Arco - Music for All will allow us to continue the provision of bursaries at the proportion we currently offer across all our teaching, and achieve our ambition of adding further opportunities for our students.

Support is directed towards the core costs of Arco - Music for All, the expenditure on musical teaching and venue hire. We believe it is important to attach a cost to our lessons for those who can afford it, to create a community from all parts of Islington and denote the value of a musical education.

We also fundraise through donations from corporate organisations and grants from charitable organisations, which is directed towards the shortfall.

Ultimately, we are seeking support to keep making music more inclusive, by reaching more young people, including those facing disadvantage.