It’s been a busy year at Drake Music. From hackathons and exhibitions to festivals and showcases, we’ve continued to push the boundaries of accessible music-making in new ways. To commemorate this fantastic year, we’ve put together 12 ‘core memories’ in a nod to the 12 days of Christmas…
Mini-Hackathon | DMLab North-West
In March, we rounded off our first academic year partnership at SODA with a special mini-hackathon event. Over 3 hours, our teams prototyped accessible music-making projects ranging from drum sample triggers, clay wind instruments and gaming controllers
2025 ABLE Assembly | Berklee College of Music
In the spring, we joined forces with other UK leaders in inclusive music in the USA. The conference shared best practice in inclusive music education, highlighting innovation in accessible instruments and opportunities for global collaboration. This was the second of two trips to the States, with the team also attending SXSW in March.
DMLab Programme National Expansion
In April, we successfully secured funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to expand our flagship programme, DMLab, to new locations across England. DMLab brings Disabled musicians and technologists together to co‑design accessible music‑making tools and remove barriers to creative expression.
Big Malarkey Festival | Hull
June marked the start of the summer and festival season! Sally, Michael and former DMC Emergent Artist, Elizabeth J. Birch, were in the North-East for Hull’s children’s literature festival. Over the weekend, they delivered ‘City Sounds’ – accessible music workshops responding to artwork and themes from Square Peg‘s work with schools in the week prior to the festival.
Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2025
July marked a landmark moment in the history of Drake Music, as we were invited to exhibit our work alongside 12 heavy weight academic and research institutions from the science and technology world. Central to our exhibition was PhotoSYNTH – a smile-powered synthiser – designed and developed over the course of 10+ years in DMLab sessions by Zen Olenski. Also joining us over the week were partners LPO, MiMU and UWE.
DMLab London: Meet the Makers
Later in July, we discovered the work of our Accessible Instrument Development Fund grantees. Tom Fox presented a highly customised touch-based MIDI controller, whilst Hugh Anysley and Miggy Barker shared their work based around AI tools, code and 3D printable models, co-designing an instrument over a series of 5 workshops.
We Out Here Festival | Dorset
In August we were out in the fields again, this time in the sunny South-West. Based in the Good Karma area along organisations like Black Lives in Music and Music Declares Emergency, we exhibited several accessible instruments and shared our work with festival goers.
2025-26 Future Leaders
September marked the start of the second cohort of our Future Leaders programme. Funded by Youth Music, the project supports and promotes inclusive, accessible practice in music-making by providing real experience in the music sector for 7 young Disabled musicians.
Drake Music Artist Showcase | London
Rich Mix was set for an incredible night of live performance, conversation and networking opportunities in October. The showcase marked the finale of our 2024-25 Emergent Artist programme, a long-running scheme that supports early-career Disabled musicians to create new work with bursaries, grants and skills development sessions.
Bradford Science Festival
We headed up to the 2025 City of Culture in October for a special day showcasing a range of accessible instruments. Thanks to the Bradford Science and Media Museum and the Royal Society for inviting us.
2025-26 Emergent Artists
In November, we announced the details of our 5 new Emergent Artists: Manukai, Antlightfoot, VVN, Kindred Prisms and Stottie. We are so excited to work with these incredible musicians throughout the next year, and to see them perform at our artist showcase!
OrchLab Festival Day | London
It’s always a joyous way to end the year with our partners London Philharmonic Orchestra! From live performances and interviews, to experimenting with accessible instruments and premiering our new OrchLab film, it was a truly uplifting day of music, connection and creativity shared with our community of Disabled adults.
Save the dates…
2026 is already shaping up to be a big one. We invite you to join us for another year where we continue to break down barriers to music:
- 24 January: DMLab Gloucester Hackathon
- 26 January: DMLab London: Sonic Special – Rich Mix London or online
- 27 January: DMLab North-West, Manchester – details TBA
- 26 February: Inclusive Music in Practice with Sound Connections, Rich Mix, London
- May: DMLab National Festival, London – details TBA
- 24 October: Drake Music Artist Showcase at LSO St Luke’s – details TBA
Seasons greetings
If you celebrate it, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish our community a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’d also like to say a big ‘thank you’ for your support throughout 2025. Whether you’ve attended events, participated in research or partnered with us on a project, we appreciate you.
Special thanks to our donors and funders Arts Council England, The National Lottery Community Fund, Youth Music, PRS Foundation, City Bridge Foundation, Oleg Prokofiev Trust, John James Foundation, players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Scops Arts Trust and Cockayne Grants for the Arts (a Donor Advised Fund held at The Prism Charitable Trust).
