Music Generation: Cork City Council Arts Office
Music Generation Cork City was established in 2011 having secured the national funding from Music Generation U2 and Ireland funds. The Cork city bid, focused on addressing the gap in Music education in disadvantaged areas in the city, was led by the Arts Office of Cork City Council, the E.T. B Cork City, and a number of local community education providers. The partnership has since expanded to include University College Cork, Cork CIT School of Music, the HSE and Cork City partnership and nine community education provider organisations. The Music Generation Cork City programme reaches 2000 children weekly in schools and youth centre’s across all RAPID areas in Cork city, making it the largest socially inclusive music education programme in the country.
Although Cork city may be viewed as been well served for Music education provision with a dedicated School of Music and UCC school of Music, the gap in provision of access to music education was significant and mostly in areas of disadvantage. To address this, a Cork City Music Education Partnership was established in 2010 representing all local stakeholders Cork City Council, Cork City ETB, UCC, CIT, the HSE, Cork City Partnership, Cork Barrack Street band, Cork Academy of Music and SoundOUT. The stakeholders not only contribute financially to cover 50% of the overall funding needed to realize the Music Generation Cork City programme but have been developing strategic partnerships and innovative projects with musicians and with local communities since its inception.
The quality and diversity of the music learning offered through Music Generation Cork city is testament to diverse range of partners in place, each informing the development of the programme. This partnership model is what makes Music Generation Cork City sustainable and is an example of how interagency co operation and investment can lead to addressing disadvantage in arts provision on a large scale.