Thank You For Being A Friend

When I look back to how my love affair with music started, I can thank my Irish grandparents for igniting the spark. They’d visit every other weekend and give me sixpence to sing while grandma played the fiddle and grandad the melodeon.

Are you in a choir or singing group that is a lifeline for someone living with dementia and their carers?

We are delighted to announce that we have partnered with The Utley Foundation to offer 100 grants of £1,000 each to eligible choirs and singing groups.

Care homes launch dementia music therapy programme to support residents living with dementia and upskill carers in their understanding of the power of music.

One year in the making, we are pleased to release our call to action Power of Music report which outlines a blueprint to use music to help transform communities and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing.

To celebrate National Social Prescribing Day on March 10th, we teamed up with Baroness Greengross, Crossbench Peer, to write about the importance of music for people living with dementia and their carers.

Lauren recently paid a visit to an Islington care home with The Spitz Charitable Trust.

The Spitz hold participatory music sessions and public events which have proven to ease anxiety, encourage interaction and improve wellbeing and memory through mental and physical participation.

On Repeat: Listening to favourite music improves brain function in Alzheimer’s patients: Toronto Study

Researchers at the University of Toronto and Unity Health Toronto have demonstrated that repeated listening to personally meaningful music induces beneficial brain plasticity in patients with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease.

To mark World Alzheimer’s Month this September, we are asking the UK to make time to listen to music with a loved one for 30 minutes a week. Our #powerof30 campaign, supported by actor Christopher Eccleston, aims to get people benefitting from the power that music has to promote and support wellbeing, which for many is at a critical low after lockdown.

New funding from Music for Dementia and the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) is set to help more people benefit from the power of music and social prescribing.

After weeks of reading through and assessing applications to The Paul & Nick Harvey Fund, we are delighted to announce that 27 organisations have received grants of between £5,000 and £50,000.

A year after Paul Harvey played his Four Notes composition on BBC Breakfast, Music for Dementia teamed up with the BBC Philharmonic to help him fulfil a longstanding dream of conducting a symphony orchestra. It resulted in an emotional and spinetingling afternoon, with Paul conducting the BBC Philharmonic playing two of his compositions and also playing the piano with the orchestra.