Partnerships between musicians, schools and cultural organisations can take many forms. This paper offers an insight into the workings of one specific and perhaps unusual partnership. I use reflexive autoethnography to examine my seven years as an associate musician working for a network of ten primary and special schools with links to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). I present analyses of interviews with other associate artists, the local programme manager and the RSC’s associate learning manager to explore the intra-actions between schools, artists, theatres and a high-status cultural organisation, the RSC. I offer insider accounts of what make a productive, mutually beneficial and sustainable partnership. I also reveal the challenges, tensions and realities of using music and other artforms to teach Shakespeare in schools.

While interviewees describe signifiers of effective partnerships - trusting and respectful relationships built between artists and schools over years, mutually agreed goals for processes (rehearsals) and products (performances at theatres and other schools) – the programme places artists in classrooms for a maximum of two days each year, insufficient time, I suggest, to form effective Communities of (musical) Practice (Kenny 2017; Wenger 1998). Fluctuations in funding, and changes in the priorities of headteachers, leaders of multi-academy trusts, local authorities and governments also impact on the partnerships.

Teachers and artists attend annual RSC-led training workshops which aim to instil not only the RSC’s signature pedagogy (rehearsal room practice) but also their high expectations. While the RSC workshops are framed around a culture of openness, experimentation and creativity, interviews reveal how local artists translate these aims and expectations into classroom workshops. Elements of critical theory (discourse, agency, materialism, habitus) help to explain the issues raised by the participants in this multiple-partner programme. The methods and findings are transferable to other arts and music partnership research.

Music education and community music share a close, interdependent relationship. While distinct in certain ways, music education predominantly fosters individual growth and development, whereas community music emphasises participation and community empowerment (Mantie, 2023).

Civil wind bands, as an artistic-musical training medium, uniquely integrate individual and collective development, offering an intriguing potential for education. Their activities can be read as educational processes mostly of a non-formal and informal nature, translating a fluid character of the educational phenomenon involving communication, interaction and intergenerational relationships in a set of authentic social contexts (Koopman, 2016). These contexts align with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective (1979,1986), positioning civil wind bands as microsystems grounded in local communities with other microsystems. Such interconnectedness deepens members’ ties to their communities and shapes their cultural and social environments (Stebbins, 2017), contributing to their cultural ecology (Pitts, 2000).

Our doctoral research project, based on a sequential explanatory mixed methods design (Creswell and Creswell, 2018) and multicase study strategy (Stake, 2006), sought to characterise the sociodemographic and educational profiles of wind band musicians, examine the structural organisation of these bands, and explore the educational and social values derived from participation. In this communication, the findings based on an integrative analytical approach (Baseley, 2011) provide an opportunity to recognise the wind band members’ sociocultural diversity, a dual perspective on their mission, either centred on culture or purely focused on philharmonic music, and their educational impacts at both personal and community levels. These insights contribute to the body of knowledge in education sciences by targeting the non-formal learning processes involved in wind band activities,

Many pedagogical studies that focus on intergenerational experiences (re)affirm that singing can have a positive impact on mental and physical health and that they contribute to the overall well-being of the participants in these experiences, acting as a "happiness booster" (Weber, 2022, p. 2). Altough intergenrational projects are not exent of challenges (Voss, 2020), the positive effects of experiences based on lifelong learnig are shown to be great (Minkenberg, 2004; Harteis, 2021).

With these premises in mind, we carried out an intergenerational project with eleven children and twelve seniors in a nursing home over a period of four months. Pre-school children visited the seniors weekly and prepared a concert together with two music teachers and two elder care assistants, which took place in the nursing home. Together they learned seven children's songs, pop songs and folk songs. Through participant observation, pre- and post-interviews, and video and audio analysis, we aimed to identify changes in the personal well-being of the participants. The results showed us that the project had a significant impact on the well-being of the seniors and the social skills of the children, empowering their individual voices and creating a social room, where they had the opportunity to interact and create an environment where they could learn from another.

Moreover, based on the principles of lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2024), the intervention highlighted the high relevance of carrying out such projects to strengthen quality educational experiences throughout life. In this sense, the project can be seen as an opportunity to counteract the persistent separation of young and old in today's society and to create space for greater intergenerational approchement. From an educational perspective encouraging intergenerational projects can contribute to reinforce the inclusive view of music education (SDG 4, UNESCO, 2024).