Pledge to give every Cornish child access to music

Alfie, pictured with music teacher Jonathan Field, said he sees a future in the music industry

A music organisation in Cornwall has been awarded £922,247 from the Arts Council England.

Since its formation in 2022, ASONE Hub has collaborated with other organisations to support the music education of young people in the county.

Its 2023 figures show 10,000 children were given access to musical instruments.

ASONE Perform managing director Cindy Dalgleish said this latest award would ensure every young person in Cornwall has access and can learn a musical instrument.

Newquay Treviglas Academy's group No One Knows has received instruments from ASONE

Pupil Alfie, who goes to Treviglas Academy in Newquay, has had guitar lessons since junior school.

He said he now sees a future for himself in the music industry.

"I definitely want to do music for a job it means everything to me. Here in Cornwall there's definitely a drive - you can definitely feel it," he said.

His teacher Jonathan Field, who is the guitar lead for the Cornwall Music Service Trust, lost his job when Cornwall Council stopped providing music education in 2014.

With the set up of the Cornwall Music Service Trust he said he was more in demand than ever before.

"Here in Cornwall music is definitely up and on the rise. My personal timetable is at an all time high. We're seeing children on waiting lists," he said.

"ASONE provide all the funding for our subsidised lessons which means we are able to teach a whole wide range of pupils which otherwise would not be able to access these instrumental lessons, which is fantastic."

Ryan Jones said: "We're reaching out to all of those hard to reach areas of the demographics across Cornwall to get more children into different areas of music"

Ryan Jones is in charge of Vibe - a new music lab - and is programme manager for ASONE hub.

"We're reaching out to all of those hard to reach areas of the demographics across Cornwall to get more children into different areas of music,"he said.

"Not just classical ensembles, not just pop bands. But grime DJs and music producers and audiences," he said.

Two years ago ASONE was awarded more than £700,000 from the Arts Council England.

"It is a yearly rolling contract from the Department for Education, that comes through the Arts Council to Cornwall," Mr Jones said.

"Our aspirations are to make additional funding our main way of running music education in Cornwall...so we're working with the private sector and different funders to try and increase what we have already received from the Arts Council."