Press Release

Musicspace participants

People with disabilities in Edinburgh will get access to new opportunities to learn to play, perform and record music thanks to a grant of £5000 from Castle Rock Edinvar’s Community Grant Fund.

The grant will support Drake Music Scotland’s Musicspace programme which provides group and one-to-one tuition sessions for 50 disabled adults and children in fully equipped and accessible music studios in Craigmillar.

Drake Music Scotland Chief Executive Thursa Sanderson OBE said: “We are delighted to receive this award from the Castle Rock Edinvar to support our Musicspace plans in 2017/18 including a special concert in May 2018 to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. Getting the chance to learn to play music and show others what you can do will make a big difference to our participants’ confidence levels, communications skills and ability to lead a more independent life.”

Heather Macnaughton, Head of Community Investment at Castle Rock Edinvar was delighted to provide support. Drake Music Scotland has been located in SPACE, our accommodation for social enterprise and charities in the heart of Craigmillar, since it was developed and brings a much valued and innovative service to this area.

 

Notes to Editor

Castle Rock Edinvar

Castle Rock Edinvar is one of Scotland’s leading housing associations managing around 8,000 properties. Our vision is to ensure successful places that enable and support people to reach their potential.

We seek to use our financial strength and scale to innovate and deliver our strong social purpose. Our contribution to new housing supply is one of the most significant within the sector. In the current challenging operating environment we strive to ensure that our communities benefit from excellent services, the economies of scale, access to expertise and competitive finance available to us by being a member of Places for People.

Drake Music Scotland

Drake Music Scotland is the nation’s leading charity (Registered Scottish Charity No. SC026908) creating music-making opportunities for people of all ages with disabilities. Based in Edinburgh, our aim is to work across Scotland using new music technology to enable people with disabilities to play music as independently as possible. Since we began in 1997, we have

  • delivered our All Join In programme in over 50 special schools in Scotland benefiting over 12000 children with disabilities
  • worked with over 5000 adults with disabilities enabling them to make music for the first time
  • trained over 200 teachers to use new music technology

We are working in partnership with a number of local authorities and other organisations including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.