Case Studies
East London Community Band
East London Community Band (ELCB) is a Friday-evening music centre based in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Historically a working-class area with a high migrant population, today the borough is one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse places in the UK.
In a decade-long tenure as Director of Music, I implemented a series of changes that helped the organisation to more than triple in size, provide a more comprehensive offering to its community, and be far more ambitious in performance.
Established in 1975 as a youth band offering inexpensive lessons and instrument loans, the organisation expanded over time to welcome adults (with parents and children often learning side-by-side) a junior band, and a group of string and recorder players playing renaissance and early baroque music.
I was appointed Director of Music in 2015 and my role was to direct the wind band in rehearsals and performances, oversee the hiring of teaching and music leadership staff, and direct overall programming and musical strategy.
On arrival it was clear to me that there was an enormous amount of potential for ELCB to expand, be far more ambitious, and provide a more comprehensive and stimulating offering to the local community.
A selection of the strategic work I did with the organisation from 2015-2025:
Educational Initiatives
Ensemble Creation: Founded three tiered jazz ensembles and a children’s percussion group to provide accessible entry points for all levels, from beginners to advanced improvisers.
Leadership Development: Launched an annual assistant conductor programme offering hands-on rehearsal experience and dedicated professional mentoring.
Composition Workshops: Created an annual scheme where members received tuition, workshopped original ideas, and heard their new works performed live by the band.
Artistic & Performance Growth
Ambitious Programming: Radically improved the artistic strategy by moving to more varied and challenging repertoire, progressively tackling more complex, large-scale works.
Enhanced Profile: Expanded the band’s performance footprint by playing bigger local venues, competing in national festivals, and appearing on BBC radio.
Landmark Commissions: Commissioned and premiered several significant new compositions, including a large-scale focal piece to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary.
Expansion & Strategy
Capacity Building: Expanded the core symphonic wind orchestra from 25 to 60 members, ultimately designing a new intermediate ensemble to handle waiting list pressure.
Audience Engagement: Drove massive audience growth, resulting in consistently sold-out concerts and more community performance invitations than the band could fulfil.
Organisational Growth: Improved the organisation’s offering to its members by introducing termly recital evenings and significantly expanding the sheet music and instrument libraries.
ELCB continues to thrive under its new leadership team, with the firm foundation I helped to create providing an excellent basis for further growth.
Today it is a community organisation par excellence, providing its members with not only the opportunity to make music and learn together, but also a social support system of extraordinary vitality.
East London Music Group
In 2015 I established East London Music Group (ELMG), an organisation dedicated to giving high-quality performances, commissioning new music, and working educationally in schools and the community.
As ELMG’s artistic director and conductor, I am responsible for setting the group’s long-term strategy. I have overseen the development, planning, and delivery of numerous projects of various kinds in the past decade.
See below a selection of the work that ELMG has undertaken.
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Led long-term school projects in partnership with London boroughs to establish and develop sustainable youth ensemble programmes.
Projects frequently involved the creation of bespoke resources, staff training and mentoring, and massed-ensemble rehearsals and performances.
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Partnered with Queen Mary University of London to deliver the university’s music scholarship programme.
Also delivered collaborative projects in which students rehearsed and performed alongside professional players, often in complex repertoire.
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Delivered workshops for young composers at King’s College London (KCL) and Queen Mary University of London, led by Professors of Composition from KCL and the Royal College of Music.
These workshops allow young composers to explore their artistry, develop their technical skill, and receive feedback from professional players.
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Managed mass-participation projects bringing together large numbers of youth and community musicians.
In 2023 our project Striking Sparks: The Story of the Matchgirls, involved four community choirs, a new children’s choir established for the project, and community wind orchestra.
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Commissioned 16 musical works—ranging from chamber music to a full-scale opera—specifically addressing historical, social, and political themes to engage local audiences.
Highlights included Robin Haigh’s 1936: An East London Uprising, about the Battle of Cable Street, Jonathan Pease’s A Fair Field, about the 1888 Bow Matchgirls Strike, and an upcoming opera Nellie Cressall, by Lucy Armstrong and Olivia Bell, which tells the story the Poplar Rates Rebellion.
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ELMG has given premieres of works by many composers, both the groups own commissions and other works.
Examples:
Frida: An Operatic Monodrama in Twelve Tableaux by Paul Edlin — an operatic rendering of Frida Kahlo’s Diary. The premiere took place at the Oxford Festival of the Arts with celebrated British mezzo-soprano Katie Bray starring as Kahlo.
Antigone, by Edward Nesbit. A chamber opera in three parts for five voices and piano. The opera recounts the events of Sophocles’ play and starred acclaimed mezzo-sporano Rosie Middleton in the title role.
Our partner organisations have included prominent universities and arts festivals such as Kings College London, Queen Mary University of London, Oxford Festival of the Arts, and Deal Music & Arts, as well as numerous local community arts organisations such as East London Community Band, CoMA London Ensemble, and many choirs.
Managing ELMG has given me a deep, practical understanding of the logistics required to organise music projects successfully, including programming, budgeting, fundraising, scheduling, marketing, and delivery of live events.
ELMG continues to thrive: July 2026 saw the group collaborate with the London boroughs of Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets to bring children from six primary schools together to perform with Colombian harpist Diego Laverde Rojas, in a project exploring Latin American traditional music.
2028 will see the group’s first full-scale operatic commission: Nellie Cressall by Lucy Armstrong and Olivia Bell. The opera will tell the inspirational story of the Poplar Rates Rebellion and will involve professional singers and orchestra alongside a community choir and band.