Charity

BRITs Funding

A substantial contribution to The BRIT Trust is made from the net proceeds of The BRIT Awards shows. To date, over £10,000,000 (£Ten million) has been raised by The BRIT Awards for good causes. It is estimated that £500,000 will be contributed in 2008.

The BRIT Trust

The BRITs Trust was created 18 years ago by leaders in the music industry who came together to create this charitable wing of the British Phonographic Industry. The mission statement of the BRIT Trust is “young people to express their musical creativity regardless of race, class, sex or ability”. Towards this end the BRIT Trust sponsors music education in all genres, through partner foundations, The BRIT School and charitable giving. Over the nearly two decades since its inception, the programs it has facilitated have raised over £13 million pounds. All proceeds go towards its goal of providing the youth with universal access to expressing creativity through music.
For more information check out: The BRIT Trust.

The BRIT School

If you thought that the audience at the BRITs Awards Show was comprised totally of rock stars in various states of inebriation, celebrities and their hangers on and a retinue of the minorly famous, you might be surprised by some of the fresher faces in the crowd. Tucked by the elbow of a sozzled museo, or just to the right of a top journalist you’ll find handfuls of kids, ranging in age from 14 to 19, looking thrilled and gazing wide-eyed at the spectacle.

No need to call security, they are not party crashing teenagers. They are lucky students from the BRITs School, Europe’s only free Performing Arts and Technology School. More than 800 youngsters from across the country with burgeoning artistic potential are selected to attend this school where, if they are serious about their craft, they can gain skills of inestimable value for making it in the biz. Arthur Boulton has worked with the BRIT school for the past 15 years. Curriculum includes guest tutorials from notable celebrities (Kylie visited recently) to hands-on experience for that added edge. “Our students know how to perform live,” says Boulton, and they know how to relate to an audience.”

Does it work? A quick perusal of their alumnae lists reads like an awards show roster: Amy Winehouse (who Boulton says was far from a wild child during her school days) the Kooks and Kate Nash to name a few. But what if a student isn’t the next Amy Winehouse? Are they relegated to a life of busking and playing the occasional wedding?

Because the school is funded both by the Department for Education and Employment (DFEE) and the British Record Industry Trust, Boulton assures us that doesn’t happen; they are well-rounded pupils. Every student who comes here leaves with qualifications as well,” he says. “They may not have a lifetime career in music, so they are equipped for a fallback career.” Even if they don’t make the top ten, often they choose careers dedicated to promoting arts in the UK. Among their ranks are record industry players and even coming full circle BRITs charity head honchos themselves.

Those that do make it are a single-minded sort, says Boulton. For example, new talent and Critics Choice award winner ADELE is a BRIT school student. ADELE always knew what she wanted to do,” he remembers. “We give them the underpinnings of knowledge and skills, but they are the ones with the talent and they have to be the ones to exploit it.”

It’s not a fame school” Boulton is quick to point out. “Shows like X Factor create the wrong impression,” he says, “that anybody can become the next sensation.”

For more information check out: The BRIT School.

Nordoff-Robbins: Where Music Heals

Few people have not experienced the transformative power of music. On a rainy day a blast of Diana Ross can send those storm clouds skittering across the sky. The particular strain of a mournful ballad can have you reaching for the phone to apologise to an ex-communicated mate. With this in mind, way back in 1958 Paul Nordoff, a musician and composer, and a special education teacher named Clive Robbins, combined forces to bring the life-enhancing power of music to those who suffered. Born from this partnership was Nordoff-Robbins a charitable foundation that trains people to become music therapists and provides over 700 music therapy sessions a week to people in need of all ages across the UK.

But what does Music Therapy do and who needs it?

“No matter how disabled or handicapped a person is,” says Simon Proctor, who has been a music therapist for the past 12 years, they have a capacity to be musical and relate to people that way.” Proctor explains that the Nordoff-Robbins approach stems from the founders concept that in every child lies a “Musical Child”, an ability to relate and be playful that can be tapped by music. This, the teaching shows, exists even in people severely closed off from human interaction either because of physical and mental handicaps or as the result of a great trauma.

Using music, therapists are able to draw these patients out of their shells. “There is a playful, musical side to [these patients],” says Proctor, “Musical Therapy is an attempt to connect to that.” Proctor cites the example of a non-verbal six-year-old girl who was referred to him because of her aggressiveness with classmates. Weekly sessions over the course of a year had her dancing and expressing herself as she had not done in school. By the time she left treatment the locked-away little girl had learned not only how to begin speaking, but how to play.

Proctor now trains the ranks of future practitioners at Nordoff-Robbins school in a two-year Master’s program. The therapists’ methodology is highly flexible, designed to be responsive to the patient’s needs and interests. Musical skills are essential as is the ability to improvise, but not just any riff will do. Says Proctor: “Musicians usually improvise for the thrill of it, here we teach them to think very carefully about why, how and what it will achieve with the patient.” With a very impaired patient he says, when improvising, “if [a therapist] is highly attentive, there is a sense that the patient is running it.” For someone unable to control anything in their life, this feeling of being in charge is incredibly powerful: “They get a different sense of being themselves,” says Proctor.

Celebrities like BRITs’ Outstanding Contribution to Music award winner Paul McCartney, often support Nordoff-Robbins with a musical interlude for patients, though Proctor laughs that their help has its pitfalls. “Sometimes they bring a rather valuable instrument without realizing that the children are going to climb all over it!”

For more information about how you can get involved and support music therapy check out Nordoff Robbins.