A group who try to make music more accessible for those living on an island has received a major funding boost.
The Isle of Arran Music School (IOAMS) will receive just under £30,000 from North Ayrshire Ventures Trust (NAVT) over three years to support and cover costs of self-employed staff and also to help mentors develop and assist students working towards their qualifications. It will also be used to fund the ongoing admin needed to sustain the operation.
Since being set up in 2016, IOAMS has been delivering free musical tuition of traditional instruments of bagpipes, drums and clarsach to young people on Arran. Their aim is to tackle the barriers that a rural island location presents to young people who wish to develop their musical abilities.
The NAVT funding will help them support a minimum of 150 young people over the next 3 years through weekly tuition over 40 weeks of the year. It will also ensure there is a pathway for the young people to join the youth pipe band and to enable them to compete in their chosen competitions.
As well as offering young people valuable musical tuition, they hope to support 20 young people through the leadership programme and will explore apprenticeship opportunities to provide employment to young people.
The NAVT programme was developed to enable voluntary, community and social enterprises in North Ayrshire to explore new opportunities to help them grow in size and improve long-term sustainability.
A spokesperson for Isle of Arran Music School, said:
“We are very excited to be receiving this funding from the North Ayrshires Ventures Trust and it is a huge help to keeping traditional music alive on the Isle of Arran. This provides so many opportunities to many of the young people of the Isle of Arran. This will allow us to hopefully grow even more and provide even more opportunities for the youth."
If you would like to apply for NAVT funding, please email infonavt@north-ayrshire.gov.uk
