To promote wellbeing amongst groups that may suffer isolation, such as those with additional needs, the homeless, or elderly, through music:
CREATE MUSIC NOW! will provide music workshops designed to engage a wide range of musical tastes and abilities, enabling the beneficiaries to express themselves and take an active role in designing the overall programme and outcomes with the group’s composer.
Professional musicians from different genres, along with volunteers, will lead workshops to inspire and facilitate the beneficiaries. At the end of each project there will be a performance not just to family, friends and carers but to the wider community.
The organisation will start by providing in-house workshops to already established groups with a view to later providing sessions for the general public and follow-on referrals.
Adults who suffer from low self-esteem, isolation, difficulties with communication and social skills and often suffering from mental illness or disability.
These participants will benefit through the enjoyment of engaging in music with different musicians from different genres, composing and self-expression, and they should expect improved confidence and social, as well as musical skills, resulting in enhanced well-being through taking part.
The community at large will benefit through attending the performance(s) and we also hope for happier residents.
Our organisation is new and as such has no track record except for the sum of its parts:
MICHAEL OMER - Co-founder of Create Music Now. Composer of Music for Television, Film and Concert Hall is an award-winning experienced composer, teacher and performer who has collaborated with groups from deprived schools and communities to compose works commissioned and broadcast by the BBC. He has collaborated with the homeless charity SHELTER and the London Mozart Players to create a work performed at the orchestra’s base in Croydon. Michael has since retired from the board but is still involved on an ad-hoc basis.
SIAN PHILIPPS is a violinist who on leaving the Yehudi Menuhin School went on to perform as soloist at the Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre, Musikverein Vienna, and has recorded several CDs to critical acclaim. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras such as the Philharmonia, London Mozart Players and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with conductors such as Jose Cura and Ilan Volkov. In 2023, funded by Arts Council England, Siân created a CD entitled "From Shadows to Light " as part of a project involving local communities. It was based around her lived experience of stalking and its far- reaching consequences.
Andrew Quartermain was CEO and Artistic Director of Pro Corda Trust, one of the largest music charities and course providers in Europe until March 2025 which he left to pursue specific interests. As a pianist, Andrew has collaborated with some of the world’s leading artists and was a prize winner at the Guildhall where he studied after Cambridge.
His work as a teacher takes in a rare spectrum of areas and focus that stretches from coaching some of the UK’s most gifted instrumentalists to specialist work for children with autism through to an international Piano Film series for Adult Learners. Andrew has composed a number of works, including music theatre and a new version of “Scrooge!” for schools.
He regularly appears on a wide variety of media from TV to radio, and is a regular contributor to BBC Children in Need. He adjudicates at Festivals and competitions throughout the country. Andrew is the Founder and Director of Piano Sanctuary, a piano and lifestyle company for adult pianists which provides online courses, weekend retreats, events, and unique concerts. His regular “Piano Sanctuary On Air” podcasts have thousands of listeners across the world.
