Musica Kirklees is now part of the West Yorkshire Music Hub!
Musica Kirklees has been the lead organisation for the Kirklees Music Education Hub since 2011 (one of 118 nationally) and has been very successful in both drawing in Arts Council England, DfE, Youth Music funding, and utilising it to support children and schools across the district.
In 2023, Arts Council announced a national retender for Hub leads and included a reduction to 43 Hub areas nationally and, from 1st September 2024, the Kirklees area will fall into a wider Music Hub covering all of West Yorkshire and encompassing Bradford, Calderdale, Leeds and Wakefield.
A rigorous application process opened in summer 2023 for interested parties to apply to be the new hubs leads, of which Musica Kirklees along with Artforms Leeds, Bradford Music and Arts, Calderdale Music, and Wakefield Music Services worked relentlessly to propose a strong West Yorkshire Hub model to secure ongoing funding and to further increase opportunities in each area that both addressed the needs of each locality, as well as achieving the aims and ambition of the new National Plan for Music Education.
Following a national announcement from Arts Council in May, we are excited to announce that the strategic consortium group of Musica Kirklees, Bradford Music & Arts Service (representing the group as named Lead Organisation), Calderdale Music, Leeds Artforms and Wakefield Music Services have secured ongoing £3.5million of annual funding into the area and a further £1.2m for refreshing Music Instrument resource. You can read the Arts Council release here Arts Council England announces new Music Hub Lead Organisations | Arts Council England.
We look forward to being able to not only continue our exciting range of opportunities for Kirklees and the West Yorkshire Area, but developing it further by:
- Appointing a range of Lead Schools to share good practice (information to be released in 2024-25).
- Increased progression routes for children.
- Collaborated experiences with a range of local, region and national partner organisations.
- Increased support and opportunities for Music Inclusion.
- Secure more funding streams to support high quality music experiences for children.
- And so much more!
From September, look for information from both Musica Kirklees AND the West Yorkshire Music Hub!
