Christmas message from RSM
As we reach the end of another year, RSM’s work continues to support more music professionals than ever before.
We have awarded grants to over 482 individuals of more than 20 nationalities, in all four home nations. We have helped those working on a freelance basis and in full-time employment including academics, administrators, arrangers, composers, conductors, directors, educators, performers, and producers, as well as those in their retirement years.
33% of health grants awarded in our last financial year were given for mental health needs including counselling, Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Demand for mental health support has remained high since the pandemic and with the continued high cost of living and the many challenges currently facing the music sector, we have worked hard to ensure we continue to meet the needs of all those who approach us for help. As always, if you know of anyone who needs us, please get in touch.
Our health and wellbeing initiatives, including our Healthy Practice Webinar Series and Social Network, continue to complement our grant giving programme. Available to the entire music sector, these services equip musicians with the tools they need to better understand their own health and wellbeing, enabling them to be better supported throughout their careers and beyond. Our next Healthy Practice Webinar, Healthy Minds, will look at anxiety management and breathing exercises for musicians’ mental wellbeing. Taking place on 7 February at 11am, more details can be found here.
We have welcomed 113 Members to our community this year. Our Members join us in support of our work and we are heartened that with our current Members’ ages ranging from 23-101, RSM clearly does impact musicians at all stages of their careers.
We have also continued to develop partnerships with organisations from across the sector, which this year has included Attitude is Everything, The Music Industry Therapist Collective and UK Branch of the European String Teachers’ Association.
We are so grateful to everyone who so generously supported us this year, both individuals and organisations – we feel immensely proud that our wonderful charity has the backing of so many.
2024 will be an exciting one at RSM, with many opportunities for you all to support our work. Our Members will be able to socialise at bi-monthly meetings in London and we will be travelling to Belfast in the Spring to meet Members and other musicians, to talk to them about our work. Our next Annual Jacqueline du Pré Charity Concert will be taking place at Wigmore Hall on Sunday 14 April, featuring Trevor Pinnock, Emmanuel Pahud and Jonathan Manson performing a programme of Bach and Telemann. The following month, RSM will be at The Royal Albert Hall as the beneficiary charity of The Really Big Chorus’ Mozart Celebration. Taking place on 12 May, the programme for this event will include The Requiem sung by an assembled choir of over 2,000 singers.
Full details about all our events (including our Webinar Series) can be found here.
We look forward to seeing many of you in 2024 and in the meantime, on behalf of everyone at RSM, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.