The National Youth Choirs has launched a four-year campaign to raise awareness of the decline in youth singing opportunities and our ambitious plans to engage more young people from a diverse range of backgrounds in singing within their region and nationally.
Singing in the UK is one of the fastest growing participatory art forms amongst adults, and more people sing in a choir each week than watch football live! However, this is not reflected at youth level, as singing in schools has been on a steep decline over the past ten years and on average only 62% of state funded schools currently have a choir and many communities, towns and boroughs have no youth singing programmes. Access to music education pathways vary widely across the UK, particularly for those in state education or communities with socio-economic, geographic, and cultural challenges, which leads to unequal opportunities for young people to benefit from this life-enhancing experience.
At the National Youth Choir we want to reverse this worrying decline and provide thousands of young people with the opportunity to sing in a choir in their school, home region and with the National Youth Choir each year. To achieve this, we have launched a four-year Campaign ‘Give All Young People a Voice’ to raise £2.75m between now and October 2027.
Through this Campaign we plan to expand the reach of our programmes, benefiting thousands of young people who currently do not have access to singing in their school or region. This will include doubling the reach of our work in state schools, gradually doubling our membership so more young people can aspire to sing at a national level, supporting a greater number of emerging professionals and providing more world class learning and performance opportunities for current members.
For further information about our specific Campaign aims and targets, please read our campaign information packs
Download campaign overviewDownload campaign aims & targets
“Our Campaign will not only enable us to reach and engage thousands of current members and disadvantaged young singers from across the breadth of the United Kingdom but will also transform their lives through enhanced confidence, self-belief, musical ability, aspirations and educational attainment. To say it is life-changing would be an understatement!” - Lucy Hollins, Creative Director of the National Youth Choir
“Our Campaign will not only enable us to reach and engage thousands of current members and disadvantaged young singers from across the breadth of the United Kingdom but will also transform their lives through enhanced confidence, self-belief, musical ability, aspirations and educational attainment. To say it is life-changing would be an understatement!”
- Lucy Hollins, Creative Director of the National Youth Choir
You may be a singer yourself, or just love singing, or a parent of a current member or an alumnus of the choir who understands firsthand the positive impact that singing can have on a young person’s musical, educational and personal growth. If you have any one of a number of motivations for wanting to support what we are aiming to achieve, we want to engage with you in our Campaign.
You can support our Campaign by becoming a Friend of the National Youth Choir or an Impresario or Benefactor level supporter.
If you would like to have an informal chat about our Campaign or alternative forms of support, including volunteering opportunities, then please do get in touch with Rob Colbert
Rob Colbert, Director of Development [email protected] 0192 249 3623
Support our campaign at the Impresario level to widen access to singing opportunities to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds Read more
Support our campaign at the Benefactor level to provide life-changing singing opportunities to thousands of aspiring singers Read more
Become one of our most loyal regular supporters by choosing to donate at one of our three Friends giving levels Read more