Pioneering projects are ongoing helping young people with disabilities to make music with the Drake Music Project.
With over two and a half decades of experience in Northern Ireland helping young people with limited gestural ability, Drake Music Project have established studios in Belfast, Newry and Derry and are active across Northern Ireland.
In 2015, the ‘Big Ears’ project enabled musicians with physical disabilities and learning difficulties to independently compose and perform their own music through technology, sponsored by major industry names Ableton Live and Roland UK.
This success in 2015 developed into a collaborative effort between Drake Music Project and post-graduate students from QUB’s Sonic Arts Research Centre to undertake a pilot scheme using innovative technology.
Prototyping inclusive musical interfaces; switch pads and control units are designed as analogs to the body parts the young musicians do have control over, enabling people with disabilities to express their creativity in an independent and personally controllable environment.
Last year saw workshops in improvisation and even ensemble performance at Queen’s University’s Sonic Lab. Drake Music Project tutor and chief-executive Dr. Michelle McCormack sums up the organization’s core ethos:
“On a wider level, disability arts and music are important for creating a truly inclusive society and they contribute to the work happening in wider society to counter the discrimination, marginalization, misunderstandings and stigmatization faced by disabled people. That’s why these kinds of events and inclusion in music making are so important”.
Listen to the beautifully sequenced Big Ears, parts 1 and 2 below
