Music in the Community Award
The winner of the brand new Music In The Community award is Matthew Peacock of Streetwise Opera.
Streetwise Opera gives homeless and formerly homeless people opportunities to further their personal development through music, with a weekly music Workshop Programme in 11 homeless centres around the country and an annual production. Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared Streetwise to be “one of the most innovative charities of the decade”.
Founded in 2000, it now operates in 11 centres around England, using music to help people who have experienced homelessness to move forward with their lives. Some 600 people are involved each year, and many take part in the extraordinary productions that have won critical acclaim for being of genuine theatrical and musical quality.
They present homeless people in a different, more positive light, and give the participants a boost in confidence. “Recently,” Peacock says, “a performer got back in touch with his estranged family and met his granddaughter for the first time; another has reduced his methadone prescription by 70 per cent.”
Editor of Gramophone Magazine, James Inverne said of Streetwise Opera: "All the finalists for this award are amazing, inspiring people using music to transform lives. And Matthew Peacock is a deserving winner - although this prize was never about the artistic quality of the work itself, Streetwise Opera does deliver superb performances. But it's for the achievement of giving people without homes and in many cases without hope, both a sense of belonging and a restored sense of optimism and community through opera that Matthew has won. What started as an idea and has become a beacon of how music can add to our quality of life, has captured the imagination of readers of The Times. Alongside all the wonderful, prize-winning discs by some very big names, it's great to honour Matthew's no less important achievement."
For more information visit www.streetwiseopera.org
