A series of informal discussions led up to an Expert Meeting on Music Education and Outreach on 4 & 5 June. On this page you will find all the reports of the meetings that took place between November 2003 and June 2004.

The meetings were designed to complement the British Season of concerts at the Concertgebouw. The aim of the two days in June was to help form an agenda for future projects and ways of working in the Netherlands, to provide further stimulus for the work already happening and to set up a network between the two countries in this field. Read more.

Leading up to the June meeting were three occasions during which UK orchestras made informal presentations about their work in Music Education and Outreach and shared their experience with Dutch musicians and other professionals from the music sector.

During the first discussion in November 2003 the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and BBC Philharmonic explained about their work; in February 2004 it was the turn of the London Symphony Orchestra; and on 19 April 2004 the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) and Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) presented their work. During this last discussion the focus was on more complicated areas of this community work, with CBSO talking about multicultural projects and ASMF on working with homeless people.

In parallel with these discussions, visits between the UK and the Netherlands have been taking place to look at work 'in the field' and to talk to leading practitioners. These visits have been undertaken by Kathryn McDowell (UK) and Jos Schillings and Suzan Lutke (Netherlands). On top of that, the Concertgebouw hosted two 'real' education projects in collaboration with British organisations.  In January they worked with the Brodsky Quartet and three young Dutch string quartets and in April they hosted a small team from the CBSO.

For more information contact Rachel Feuchtwang.