Ahead of this year’s World Music Day on 21st June, Tinderbox Orchestra funded by PRS Foundation’s Beyond Borders programme, can announce that its ground-breaking 20-piece orchestra will undertake a tour of UK libraries to spread a national campaign to get musical instruments into public libraries, so people can borrow them for free. The tour will see rappers and singers performing alongside, among others, heavy brass, strings and woodwind.
The We Make Music Instrument Libraries initiative has been growing in Scotland for the past few years and has now spread to over 10 local authorities and 30 community libraries across the country. Thousands of people have borrowed instruments and these libraries are introducing a whole package of music lessons, workshops, live gigs and events into their buildings, bringing crowds of new people into libraries and supporting music and educational opportunities for communities across Scotland.
The campaign started when a local youth music project run by Tinderbox Collective teamed up with Muirhouse Library in North Edinburgh to enable children and families to borrow instruments during the summer holidays. It worked so well that the idea got picked up by other library services and local music organisations, who formed a growing Scotland-wide collective, convened by the Music Education Partnership Group and We Make Music Scotland. They ran a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2022 that gathered donations of hundreds of second-hand instruments that were serviced to a good standard and placed in libraries across the country, giving thousands of people the opportunity to try out saxophones, guitars, ukuleles, trumpets and all sorts of other instruments.
A new crowdfunding campaign will accompany the tour with a call-out for second-hand instruments to help kickstart instrument libraries wherever they go and they plan to release a Live in Libraries album as part of the campaign, featuring performances and collaborations from different shows on the tour.
Internationally acclaimed musician and Director of the Music Education Partnership Group, John Wallace (CBE) said: “With such an incredible demand out there for musical instruments from people of all ages and abilities who want to learn, recycling musical instruments for future generations to enjoy is a zero-carbon idea whose time has come!”
With more to be announced the first dates are:
- 21st June, (World Music Day) Glasgow – Mitchell Library | tickets here
- 6th July, Leeds – Central Library | tickets here
- 4th July, Manchester – Henry Watson Music Library | tickets here
- 8th-10th, 15th-17th, 22nd-24th August, Edinburgh Festival Fringe – 9 shows where they will present their new show Outwith Words: Tinderbox Orchestra & Loud Poets, featuring collaborations with some of Scotland’s leading spoken word artists. Edinburgh Central Library | tickets here
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 