A visual arts charity has received funding for a unique music and colour installation and series of therapeutic workshops to tour London’s special educational needs schools.

City Bridge Trust, the City of London Corporation’s charitable funder, has awarded £87,900 in funding to Eye Music Trust, a charity based in Croydon which specialises in connecting the latest music technology with intense colour, light and space.

The grant will fund a three-year programme bringing week-long music and colour sensory workshops with the charity’s Colourscape installation to over fifteen special educational needs schools across London. Children aged four to 19 will take part.

Eye Music Trust has developed new movement sensors and touch paintings which use lasers to detect movement. The children can control the sensors to create music and control colour and light, whatever their limitations of movement. At the end of a week the children develop their own creative music that they perform to the public, family and friends.

The charity’s long-term aim is to place permanent installations within special educational needs schools, so disabled children, even those with no movement, can become musicians with the aid of specially developed muscle sensors.

Alison Gowman, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust Committee, commented:

“This charity gives children a unique experience, taking creativity and music to a whole new level.

“Eye Music Trust is providing children with an invaluable opportunity that without this funding, they might never have. It will also provide long lasting memories for family and friends as the children get to showcase what they have learnt.

“We are committed to making the capital a better place to live, for all Londoners.”

Simon Desorgher, Projects Director at Eye Music Trust, added:

“This grant will help us to extend our work with the most disabled children across over half of London’s boroughs.

“Children with profound disability find it impossible to play musical instruments. The unique software and sensor system that Eye Music Trust has created enables them to control complex music and create their own intense therapeutic colour with just the movement of the head or hands. This can be truly liberating for these children.

“Not only will the children gain huge benefit from being enabled through technology to create music - the parents too gain huge pride from seeing their child giving a public performance in spite of their disability or learning difficulties. Huge smiles tell the whole story!”

City Bride Trust is also supporting disabled people through Bridge to Work, its new £3.3million scheme which will open up a wealth of new employment opportunities for young disabled Londoners.

This ground-breaking programme will narrow the employment gap for young disabled people by providing financial backing for organisations tackling the issue. Over the next five years the Bridge to Work programme will fund projects offering employability support and strengthen links between employers and the disabled community.

Working in partnership with leading disability charities, City Bridge Trust will pay for work experience, personalised support for young disabled people looking for jobs, advice on employment rights, role coaching and a new online training resource for job seekers.

City Bridge Trust is London’s biggest independent grant giver, making grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage and inequality across the capital. The Trust has awarded around 7,700 grants totalling over £370 million since it first began in 1995. It helps achieve the City Corporation’s aim of changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Londoners

ENDS

Media Enquiries

Kristina Drake

Media Officer, City of London Corporation

Kristina.Drake@cityoflondon.gov.uk

07710860884 / 020 7332 1125

Notes to editors

About the City of London Corporation:

The City of London Corporation provides local government and policing services for the financial and commercial heart of Britain, the 'Square Mile'. In addition, the City Corporation has three roles:

• We support London’s communities by working in partnership with neighbouring boroughs on economic regeneration, education and skills. In addition, the City of London Corporation’s charitable funder, City Bridge Trust, makes grants of around £20 million annually to tackle disadvantage across London.

• We also help look after key London heritage and green spaces including Tower Bridge, the Museum of London, Barbican Arts Centre, City gardens, Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest, Burnham Beeches, and important commons in London.

• We also support and promote the ‘City’ as a world-leading financial and business hub, with outward and inward business delegations, high-profile civic events and research-driven policies, all reflecting a long-term approach.

See www.cityoflondon.gov.uk for more details.