Following two days of extensive discussions, presentations and interactions, this last session offers three short presentations that display how other organisations and networks deal with the topic of music education and what their perspective on collaboration is.

Dr Andrea Creech is Reader in Education at UCL Institute of Education. Following an international career in performance and instrumental teaching, Andrea was awarded a PhD in Psychology in Education. Since then she has led extensive funded research concerned with musical learning and participation across the lifespan, including an international literature review for Sistema Global, and the Music for Life Project, funded by the UK Research Councils and winner of the Royal Society for Public Health’s award for research in Arts and Health, 2014. Andrea has presented and published widely on topics concerned with musical development and lifelong learning in the arts. She is a Board member of the International Society for Music Education, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Graduate Member of the British Psychological Association.  Andrea is co-author of Active Ageing with Music and co-editor of Music Education in the 21st Century in the UK.

Before joining Creative Scotland, Joan was Head of Education at the Scottish Arts Council for 6 years where she was responsible for the corporate objective of “placing the arts and creativity at the heart of learning”. Previous posts have included education posts at the Scottish Arts Council, the National Galleries of Scotland, Historic Scotland and Falkirk Council as well as posts in West Africa, India and the Middle East.  She is a graduate of Edinburgh University where she studied History and History of Art and Dundee University where she gained a Post Graduate Diploma in Education. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and the Royal Geographical Society. She has served on numerous boards and committees concerned with the arts, learning and young people including Young Scot, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young People Committee. She is passionate about the value of the arts and creativity as part of fulfilled, healthier, happier individuals and communities.

Joan leads on all aspects of Creative Learning, one of Creative Scotland’s 4 connector themes. This includes responsibility for overseeing national projects and strategic initiatives such as the Creative Learning Plan, the Youth Music Initiative, ArtWorks Scotland, CashBack for Creativity and “Time to Shine”, Scotland’s Youth Arts Strategy. Our Creative learning work spans the arts, screen and creative industries and is conducted in partnership with national education and young people’s agencies and a range of areas of Government including Education, Culture, Justice and Children and Young People. The work aims to encourage organisations, including Creative Scotland to be responsive, adaptive and continually learn as well as increase the quantity and quality of creative learning opportunities for everyone.