BHMC – 13 April 2021
Open Strings
becomes
Brighton and Hove Music for Connection
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For the past eight years Open Strings have been Brighton & Hove’s inclusive music hub: the community music service for adults of all abilities to connect and create together for wellbeing and social inclusion. We have been empowering people across the city to keep connected and stay independent by working with people living with dementia, older people, for mental health, and carers.
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Throughout the pandemic, we continued to provide 250+ online and outdoor music sessions, working with over 300 people across the city, supporting their mental health, creative expression, and wellbeing, in groups and one to one.
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As we emerge out of lockdown we are realising we all need to find ways to rebuild our communities, and making sounds and music together can make this transition easy by helping us reconnect in an enjoyable way.
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Brighton and Hove Music for Connection (BHMC) provides a wide range of bespoke music sessions for all types of groups or individuals, helping us all find our voice again.
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Bela Emerson, founder/co-director of BHMC says:
“We realised during the work we were doing during the pandemic that people were really suffering from loneliness and their mental health was deteriorating, especially isolated people who were shielding, as well as people living in care homes and even younger people working from home or studying online. We saw how sharing music with them, playing instruments together or creating something completely new created a space where people felt heard, they felt alive. They were able to access their feelings of loss and sadness, happiness and joy. We then realised our mission needed to expand to help people coming out of lockdown, emerge and reconnect with confidence and with as much compassion as possible, and we developed our offer and became Brighton & Hove Music for Connection.“
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