We work collaboratively with care homes to lead projects that provide opportunities 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 a group of people living with dementia and care staff who come together to improvise music over a series of weeks. We prioritise working with individuals who are at the more advanced stages of dementia and may be socially isolated, disengaged or facing significant communication difficulties.

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

I think we get more medicine from this than anything they put in bottles and pills.

Person Living With Dementia

During the Coronavirus pandemic, we adapted our practice and introduced a range of activity that can take place remotely, enabling us to continue to connect with residents and staff in meaningful ways. We interviewed a musician and staff member who worked together online – you can view the video here.

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 and are shaped collaboratively with participants, 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, singing, poetry and visual arts.

It makes me want to live on...

Person Living With Dementia

It gave us a purpose to get out and enjoy lovely company.

Person Living With Dementia

It has given me a different perspective to see the value of music in culture and society and in a social sense.

Royal Academy of Music Musician

Music for the Moment is a monthly concert series led in partnership with the Royal Academy of Music, 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 and relaxed: 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.

Most concerts are held at St Marylebone Parish Church, 17 Marylebone Road, Strand NW1 5LT and Wigmore Hall hosts some concerts throughout the year.

Click here to watch the Music for the Moment concert performed by the Asaka Quartet at Wigmore Hall on Friday 16 February 2024.

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, sessions are led in a responsive and person-centred way, drawing on the diverse heritages of the choir’s members and learning songs in many different languages. Whilst there is a strong focus on healthy vocal technique and exploring an ambitious range of repertoire, 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.

Sessions also include social time, movement, poetry readings, and live performances from visiting musicians. The group meets weekly in-person at Wigmore Hall, and our online Singing with Friends choir meets once a fortnight.

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 chose the name Singing with Friends and gives a performance on the Wigmore Hall stage twice a 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

It widens the horizons of my life. It gives me a lot of happiness and it keeps me going.

Person Living With Dementia

It makes me feel taller and younger.

Person Living With Dementia

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.

WHEN AND WHERE
Monday Afternoons meet once a month 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.

I felt included from the very first minute of the first session ... I felt like I could make important contributions ... and that anything I contributed would be valued

Participant

I felt connected, engaged and supported. I felt that I was being seen as myself, not defined by my diagnosis…This has been the most helpful intervention I have had since my diagnosis. I think is because it was an opportunity to be with others who have similar diagnoses, but without these being the focus of the group. In the past I have sometimes found professional musicians intimidating, but this was certainly not the case here.

Participant

It brings a creative experience right into our homes which is invaluable when our activities are restricted by disability and we can no longer do what we used to be able to do.

Participant