B:Music Limited: TDN 2026
Short Project Title: She:Music
Bio: B:Music has a mission to inspire a love of music through performance, participation and learning. Each year, our talent development work provides pathways for 600 young people to progress their musical education and to consider careers as musicians or within the wider music industry, while our community projects support 5,000 local people who experience barriers to engaging with live music performances. Through our extensive and varied programme, we enrich Birmingham by programming 850 paid performance opportunities for local, national and international artists (120 of which are free to attend) that are accessed by a combined audience of over 480,000 individuals.
Programme Description: Year 3 of She:Music will convert two years of career development into professional outcomes. Three female-identifying participants will be supported through tailored pathways; creating, releasing and promoting professional recordings; undertaking headline and high-profile live performances, with clear progression routes into touring, representation and paid work; and a robust evaluation framework to maximise learning and impact.
B:Music is nevertheless aware that offering such opportunities to female artists is only scratching the surface of confronting the systematic issues propagated by gender imbalance in the music industry. Hence, the focus of the workshops and networking opportunities (which will also be open to the wider female music community), in addition to talent enhancement, will be to empower participants to work successfully and to thrive. These sessions will help to build confidence, knowledge and experience to develop careers and inhabit leadership roles, as well as being able to encourage and support subsequent generations of female musicians and technical support. At present, women remain underrepresented in key roles in the music industry – and are also more likely to experience financial challenges than men. While women’s visibility in music also decreases dramatically with age. Through She:Music, B:Music will look to help re-shape and change this narrative.