We work collaboratively with care homes to devise activity that is responsive to the context and priorities of each setting. Each project provides a unique opportunity to explore new and creative ways of connecting and communicating.

Our improvisation-based projects with groups of residents and staff remain at the heart of the programme, with additional activity designed to complement this work. In these projects, a team of 3 professional musicians work alongside 8 people living with dementia and 5 members of care staff who come together to improvise music over a series of weeks. Each project is supported by a Musician Facilitator who helps to ensure the smooth running of the project, with a particular focus on supporting the musician team, and a Training and Development Facilitator who supports the whole team, focusing primarily on staff development, and reflecting on the learning and the legacy of the project within the setting.

I think it is beneficial to staff and residents. It is relieving. It just gives you this calm. Everything else goes away and you’re just in that moment. Usually, you’re always thinking about the next thing…I’ve enjoyed this session very much. It’s so important for us.

Care Staff Member

In partnership with Resonate Arts and the Royal Academy of Music, we lead creative music projects for people who are living in their own homes but may be at risk of increased social isolation. Participants are engaged through Resonate Arts, who provide support before, during and after each project. Participants are often new to dementia services, and the projects provide a relaxed environment in which people can take part in an activity in their local community, as well as providing links for participants to other opportunities that Music for Life has to offer.

The sessions are led by musicians from our Music for Life team alongside students from the Royal Academy of Music, developing the skills of the emerging workforce. Before the music session begins, participants are welcomed for tea and coffee, which encourages social interaction and provides a space for new friendships to form and develop. The sessions are responsive to each group, but typically use a theme or topic for creative inspiration and include a combination of improvisation, exploration of instruments, performances of existing repertoire, lyric writing and singing.

Music for the Moment is a monthly concert series led in partnership with Royal Academy of Music, Wigmore Hall, Resonate Arts and St Marylebone Parish Church.

Music for the Moment concerts aim to be fully inclusive of people living with dementia. Everyone is welcome, however, we ask our audiences to join us in fully supporting those who are living with the condition. Concerts are informal: performers introduce the pieces they are playing, seating is unreserved, and audience members are welcome to come and go as they wish.

Concerts are performed by musicians from the Royal Academy of Music and are free to attend with complimentary refreshments served before and after the concert, creating space for conversation and connection between audience members and performers.

Wigmore Hall hosts 3 concerts each year, and the remaining concerts are held at St Marylebone Parish Church.

The atmosphere was warm and welcoming from the moment [we] stepped into the foyer. [We] very much enjoyed chatting to the horn player who was giving the concert with an accompanist while having refreshments before the concert. This pre-concert socialising made [it] a real 'day out'.

Friend of a Person Living With Dementia

Singing with Friends is a choir for families living with dementia led in partnership with Resonate Arts. Founded in 2017, it is a core part of our Music for Life Programme.

The group chose the name Singing with Friends and sessions are led in a responsive and person-centred way. Whilst there is a strong focus on healthy vocal technique, Singing with Friends is just as much about connecting in the moment through singing, and each voice and personality contributes to the spirit and dynamic of the group. Together the choir explores an ambitious range of repertoire, from sea shanties to opera, old-time classics to pop songs. As well as singing, sessions involve social time, movement, poetry readings, and live performances from visiting musicians.

We offer training opportunities for emerging musicians (with a guest musician from the Royal Academy of Music at each session and emerging vocal leaders supported across a series of sessions). The group meet weekly in-person at Wigmore Hall, and our online Singing with Friends choir meet once a fortnight.

Singing with Friends give a performance on the Wigmore Hall stage three times each year, and have shared many other musical successes together including taking part in a recording for BBC Radio 3, featuring in an article for The Telegraph, being selected as a finalist for a Dementia Care Award in the Outstanding Arts and Creativity in Dementia Care category, and performing at Buckingham Palace.

Singing with Friends is currently open to residents living in Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea – please contact Resonate Arts if you are interested in joining the choir (please note, there may be a waiting list).

Resonate Arts: 0300 030 7212 / info@resonatearts.org

Music for Life Monday Afternoons is a warm and welcoming group that meets to support and inspire each other through music-making. Our group is made up of people living with a young onset dementia, their families and carers, and musicians and facilitators from Wigmore Hall’s Music for Life programme.

Together we make music that reflects us as a group, with our stories, experiences and ideas leading to shared conversation and creativity. The sessions provide an open space for everyone to contribute in whatever way they are most comfortable. You don’t need to be a musician to take part, and there is no pressure to participate in any particular way.

Our team includes a facilitator who is experienced supporting those affected by young onset dementia and is on hand to help everyone in the sessions. Please get in touch if you would like more information. We hope to welcome you to our group soon!

WHEN AND WHERE
Monday Afternoons meet once a fortnight, alternating between online sessions and in-person sessions that take place in Wimbledon. You are welcome to attend online, in-person, or both.

Online sessions take place via Zoom at 2.30 – 4pm

In-person sessions take place at Hillside Church in Wimbledon at 2.15 – 4.15pm (including time for refreshments either side of the music session).

Location: Hillside Church, 37 Worple Road, Wimbledon, SW19 4JZ.

The nearest train station is Wimbledon. There is no parking at the venue, but on-street parking is available nearby.

BOOKING
Attendance is free but booking is required. To find out more or to book a place, please contact the Wigmore Hall Learning team:

Email: learning@wigmore-hall.org.uk

Telephone: 020 7258 8240

Out of the Ordinary is an innovative online project led in partnership with Wigmore Hall, the Royal Academy of Music, and Rare Dementia Support (a world-leading, UK-based service provided by the UCL Dementia Research Centre (DRC) and partners and funded by The National Brain Appeal).

Out of the Ordinary brings together musicians from Music for Life, students from the Academy, and individuals from UCL’s Rare Dementia Support groups, and creates space for everyone involved to explore ways in which they can nurture their own and each other’s wellbeing through music and the expressive arts.

The project is led by Music for Life musician Caroline Welsh, whose ideas inspire Out of the Ordinary, and was first piloted as part of the Music for Life programme in Autumn 2020. The project was developed in response to the success of our online Monday Afternoons workshops, and the need for activities that offered meaningful and creative connection in a time of increased isolation.

Out of the Ordinary sessions take place fortnightly throughout the year with individuals taking part from across the UK. Please contact Hermione Jones (hjones@wigmore-hall.org.uk) for more information.