Welcome to Youth Music’s North West regional homepage.  This is a new site section dedicated to information specific to your region.

I’m Christine Spriggs, Youth Music’s Regional Executive Officer for the North West. I am a musician and songwriter and I’ve been working for Youth Music as the Regional Co-ordinator since early 2003. Before that I worked as the Participation Officer for the Liverpool Philharmonic for 6 years. After time as the lead singer in bands I moved on to train in community arts development and worked across the North-West for many years as a workshop leader and event producer.

I love music. It moves me, enthuses me and makes me want to sing and dance! It’s empowering and fun to sing and make music and I passionately believe in every child’s right to do just that.

The North West is a region of contrasts covering the five areas of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Cumbria and Lancashire. With a population of 6.7 million the North West is larger than several EU countries, and has a diverse mix of people representing many ethnic groups. Four-fifths of the region is rural, but most people live in the urban areas; 60 per cent of people in the two core conurbations of Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The North West is a region of incredible cultural heritage and riches and continues to be at the cutting edge of our culture now.

Areas such as Cheshire, southern Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Manchester city centres continue to grow, but many communities have yet to see the fruits of this urban renaissance. This is reflected in the continued presence of North West neighbourhoods high in the Indices of Deprivation.

I have been working hard across the formal, informal and non-formal music sectors to encourage all concerned to provide more opportunities for our children and young people to participate in high quality music-making in all its forms and styles. Another key part of my job is to work as an advocate for all of this – lobbying our MPs, local government representatives and key agencies and organisations with powerful roles in our communities to inform them about our work and encourage more and continued support. I also work to encourage partnerships and networking throughout the vibrant North – West music sector offering information, advice and guidance. We all need to work together and co-operate to realise the goal of every child having access to high quality music-making opportunities.

Amongst the key challenges in the North West, tackling inequality of opportunity for a significant number of the region’s children and young people due to high levels of economic deprivation continues to be central. Work to drive up aspiration and educational attainment for more of the region’s children and young people is providing the framework for this to take place. The region also needs to meet the challenges of culturally diversity issues as well as issues of crime and fear of crime. We need to work in partnership to continue to provide more chances for children and young people to be involved in quality arts and creativity activities. With two massive conurbations in the region it can sometimes be forgotten that there are also major areas of rural isolation and sparse population which present yet more challenges in the North West.

There is a significant element of regeneration going on in some parts of our region but there are areas where this is not the case. Supporting more quality music-making within those communities where children and young people still have least opportunity to do so  is the major priority as well as continuing to develop partnerships in our diverse and rural communities.
Youth Music research and case studies

Some of the key opportunities presenting themselves in the region now and in future years include Liverpool’s time as European Capital of Culture in 2008 with major links forming to the London Cultural Olympiad and of course the range of exciting educational pilots and Sure Start activity that continues across the North West.

There are four Youth Music Action Zones (YMAZs) operating in the North West region. They are Mzone on Merseyside, Soundwave in Cumbria, More Music based in Morecambe working in the Lancashire area and GMMAZ working in Greater Manchester.
More information on the YMAZs

Youth Music’s policy from 2005-10 focuses upon 5 priorities: early years; singing; transition between primary and secondary school; young people at risk; workforce development.

Visit the Regional Policy page for the North West