The Big Give Christmas Challenge is the UK’s biggest collaborative fundraising campaign, offering supporters of the BSO and other charities the opportunity to double their donations.

This year, we have a Christmas Challenge target of £38,829, which will fully fund our Young Associates Programme between January and May 2025. We’ve already secured £19,414 in matched funding, meaning that between midday on Tuesday 3 December and midday on 10 December, every £1 donated via the Big Give website will be matched with £1 of pledged funding, until the total project cost is reached.

Your support can make all the difference this Christmas. We would be so grateful if you would help fund this remarkable project by getting behind our Big Give Christmas Challenge. Together, we can continue to inspire creativity and bring music to communities in need. To donate, please click here – thank you for considering a festive gift!

Instrument of change: training young music leaders

Music drives positive change in isolated, vulnerable, and developing communities. It boosts health and wellbeing, helps children succeed in school, and brings people together. However, delivering inspirational music projects requires a specialist skillset, and while there is huge demand for music leaders, aspiring musicians struggle to get a foot on the ladder: training is rare, music education continues to face challenges, and on-the-job experience is key but often requires unpaid work.

The BSO Young Associate training programme will give three talented young musicians the specialist training they need to pursue fulfilling careers as much-needed community music specialists, and introduce a much larger cohort to the joys of leading music-making. The Young Associates will assist on and lead transformative projects in schools, hospitals, care homes, and more, benefiting thousands of people region wide. In 2023/24, our previous Young Associates reached 8,604 participants through 94 events – a testament to the impact and reach of this project!

If you would like to know more, please download the project information on the right.

“I felt so privileged to be a part of the team at those events, experiencing the care and love shared in the room between everyone present – family, friends, participants and professionals alike. It was extremely humbling.”

Ed Lee, 2o23/24 Young Associate