Support for individual musicians and their ensembles to build their digital skills, relocate their core activities online and build new income streams.
As we all know, musicians have been hit hard by Covid-19. They are unable to rehearse together, perform, or undertake other face-to-face activities including teaching. Many of the clubs, pubs, restaurants, arts-centres, concert halls and theatres within which we work will be closed for the foreseeable future. It will not be possible to run tours and larger-scale musical events for a long time.
Here at UCan Play, we wanted to think about how we could support musicians at this difficult time. We wanted to collaborate with our partners – the MU and NYMAZ – to coordinate our response. We spotted a funding opportunity via Innovate UK and made an application for funding this project – INTERFACE:RESPONSE. Thankfully, we were successful!
The key aim of INTERFACE:RESPONSE is to quickly create a set of training resources, mentoring opportunities and wider support for individual musicians and their ensembles to help them to build their digital skills, relocate their core activities online and build new income streams.
How the scheme will work
There are two main strands to INTERFACE:RESPONSE. Firstly, we are currently designing a training programme for four key activities – rehearsing, performing, teaching, creating and curating. Each activity strand will include case studies, interactive training resources, technical and creative activities and other elements as appropriate.
Secondly, we are designing a mentoring programme for all musicians wanting to develop their practice in these core areas. During August, we will recruit and train mentors drawn from across the UK. Mentors will help musicians by offering online support to individuals and small groups as they begin to establish their new practices online. We will also provide an online forum so musicians can help support each other, using the principle themes of the training and mentoring programmes as key starting points.
Training and mentoring programs will be free to attend, and mentors will be paid for their time.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor on the INTERFACE:RESPONSE programme, please contact us at mentors@interfaceresponse.com
Further information about INTERFACE:RESPONSE on their website.