Nick, Author at OPUS Music CIC

OPUS’ return to music-making at Leicester Children’s Hospital

An impactful return to music-making at Leicester Children's Hospital

We’re delighted to be back at Leicester Children’s Hospital on a weekly basis, making music for and with patients, their families and visitors and the wonderful multi-disciplinary team of healthcare staff. Whilst we’ve been working at the hospital since 2012, our visits have been on hold during the COVID pandemic. 21 September 2022 saw our long-awaited return to practice, and it’s been wonderful to witness the impact so far. It’s great to be back!

Sarah Matthews and Oli Matthews at Leicester Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Healthcare Musician Nick Cutts making music with patients and healthcare staff

Nick Cutts

Nick Cutts making music for patients

Healthcare Musician Oli Matthews working on the Children's Critical Care Unit

Matron and Deputy Head of Nursing at the Children's Hospital Evelyn Gysei-Appiah and Deputy Chief Nurse Robin Binks with Healthcare Musicians Sarah Matthews and Oli Matthews

I have music in my hands, in my feet and in my heart.

Wednesdays are the best day of the week when the OPUS musicians are touring the wards, lifting the spirits of staff and engaging patients and families in age appropriate songs 🙂

Very positive, lovely for parents to see their child enjoying it.

They not only impact patients and families, you can always visibly see staff relax and stress levels drop as they enter the ward, everyone loves to hear them play and it makes such a difference to the whole team.

It’s a great distraction and a lovely calming experience

My 15 year old who has severe learning difficulties, who loves music, was immediately able to engage with you and your music when you kindly came and offered us a solo performance as she was too distressed to stay in the main waiting area. You left her (and me) relaxed and really set the tone for the rest of our day. The way in which you approached her, and the music you played, displayed your skills and experience in working with children and young people in what can be a very distressing environment.

We are extremely grateful for the support of Leicester Hospitals Charity in enabling our return to practice at the Children’s Hospital.

musiccareconference

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Music Care Conference - Presented in Hybrid format from Vancouver, Canada

10 Reasons to Come to Music Care Conference 2022

Learn and experience how music supports your health and wellness

An amazing group of speakers (see below) explain how they are using music in care

Hear Susan Aglukark, named 2022 Junos Humanitarian of the year, tell her story
Meet Dr. Corene Thaut, co-founder of neurologic music therapy, and the impact of her work

Great value! $130/person, seniors/students $75 including lunch and refreshments

Amazing location! – at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster, across from the Sky Train

Hybrid! If you can’t attend in person, come virtually – $75/person – 9-4:30 PST

Exhibitors and music store on site

Network! Make some new friends who share your interest in music and care

Discover current research on music and health topics

note published times for this conference are in PST (8 hours behind GMT

REGISTER HERE

Marketing and Communications Manager

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We're recruiting: Marketing and Communications Manager

Download: Full details including person specification
Download: OPUS Music CIC background information

OPUS Music CIC (OPUS) is looking to engage a dynamic, forward-thinking person to manage OPUS’ marketing and communications. This role is offered initially for a period of 2 years and is offered on a flexible, self-employed basis of 80 days per year. The role is supported by funding from Youth Music’s Recharge Fund. We hope to both expand and extend the role over the 2-year period subject to further funding.

Role Purpose
• With support from Chief Executive Nick Cutts, to continuously develop and enact OPUS’ marketing and communications strategy
• To engage stakeholders and audiences in dialogue through appropriate methods and platforms in order to capitalise upon partnerships and expand OPUS’ reach

Operational Responsibilities

• To create and post marketing and communications content (with support from the Chief Executive and artistic team) to ensure that the messages and stories of OPUS’ practice are heard by a wide variety of stakeholders and audiences
• To work alongside marketing and communications teams within partner organisations to ensure that communications are appropriate, collaborative and impactful
• To promote training and other opportunities to the Arts/Music and Health/Care sectors utilising media/platforms as deemed appropriate (with support as required from the Chief Executive and/or artistic team)
• To ensure that OPUS’ web-based content is up-to-date and refreshed appropriately
• To develop marketing and communications materials (with the support of the Chief Executive and Creative Team) as appropriate
• To engage in networking, gathering contacts and connections for OPUS through a variety of channels
• To keep informed on current developments within this rapidly developing area of work and respond to these in a timely manner

Role/Fees
The role is offered on a on a flexible, self-employed basis with a fee available of £150 per day for 80 days per year (nominally 2 days per week for 40 weeks of the year).

Place of work
You will need to work from your own base and provide all facilities such as own computer, printer, broadband connection and telephone. No additional fees are available to cover costs associated with equipment/ office base.

Contract
The appointment will start as soon as possible with the role currently anticipated to run for a minimum period of 2 years. The contract will include a 3-month probationary period, at the end of which either party may terminate the contract.

Equality and Diversity
We welcome applications from all sections of the community, particularly those currently under-represented within OPUS Music CIC and the Arts and Health sector.

How to apply
Please send a letter of application detailing how you meet the person specification (no more than 2 sides of A4), with an accompanying CV, including the names of two referees to nick@opusmusic.org

Please direct any questions to Chief Executive Nick Cutts:
nick@opusmusic.org
Tel: 07786 157515

Your application should arrive no later than 5pm on Wednesday 26th October.
We will inform candidates who have been shortlisted for interview on Friday 28th October.
Interviews will be held via MS Teams on the morning of Friday 4th November.

Practicing Well Awards

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We are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted for a ‘Practicing Well Award’ by the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance.
https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/chwa-2021-awards-shortlist-practising-well

This award celebrates practice that is leading the way in championing, delivering and embedding practitioner care into project design, commissioning and management.

The Musician in Healthcare role is one which necessitates deep connection with the patient, facilitated by music-making. The pandemic, and resulting loss in these daily connections could have been devastating for our community of musicians. We chose to invest in our team, to support the development of digital skills through the provision of paid time, resources and collaboration. This has resulted in a healthy, inspired workforce, a continued and highly valued connection with the healthcare communities they serve, and a bright future for OPUS.

‘We are thrilled to have been nominated for this award. We’re delighted that the value of investing in our team of musicians has been recognised in this way, and that we stand here today with a team who have been supported throughout the pandemic, facilitated to meet challenge with skilled enthusiasm, rather than wallowing in the limitations of the now. We go forward as a team with renewed energy and optimism.’

Nick Cutts, Chief Executive

Opportunity: online music-making with OPUS musicians

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Culture Recovery Fund

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We are delighted to announce that OPUS been granted an award of just over £27,000 from the second round of the Government’s #CultureRecoveryFund. We are amongst more than 2,700 recipients to benefit from this latest round of awards.

During the COVID pandemic, our highly-skilled musicians have not been able to visit most of the healthcare settings in which they would normally work. As a team, they have met this challenge with great creativity, building new skills in digital delivery, and generating a new online offer for our healthcare partners and the people in their care. You can see some of this output on our COVID-19 response page here: www.opusmusic.org/COVID-19

This support will enable us to begin our transition back to practice, enhancing our online offer, and expanding it to include our training and advocacy roles.

Frances Watt, Co-Chair says:

“We are grateful for the support offered by the Culture Recovery Fund allowing OPUS Music CIC to inject energy and action again into our partnerships with our healthcare partners and prepare our musicians for the welcome transition back to delivery and practice. Vulnerable children and young people in paediatric settings will benefit from the development of a new online offer from our team of musicians; healthcare staff will benefit from the provision of new training material to support the use of music within their own practice, and musicians wishing to practice within healthcare settings will benefit from the development of an online training course based on OPUS’ experience and approach. This grant enables OPUS Music CIC to get back to building a culture of every-day music making within healthcare settings and providing employment and opportunities to professional musicians at this difficult time.”

Nick Cutts, Chief Executive says:

“We have seen how important music has been to communities throughout the pandemic. We know just how much our in-person offer within healthcare settings has been missed over the past year, and are thankful that, through this fund, we can plan for a future of music-making within healthcare which is even bigger and better than ever before.”

About #HereForCulture
Here for Culture is a movement that unites the public, government and cultural organisations in support of our fantastic cinemas, theatres, music venues, museums, galleries and heritage.
With more and more culture being curated online, there is no better time to support and enjoy all the new and exciting ways culture is available to us.
By being #HereForCulture, we aren’t just supporting the people in the industry, we’re also supporting communities across the country.

Online Resources for Children’s Hospitals

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While, we’re not able to visit hospital wards, we’ve been working away during the COVID lockdowns creating online resources for use in the Children’s Hospitals with which we work. These are specially created videos, echoing some of the approaches we normally use in hospitals to provide the health and wellbeing benefits of music-making.

These resources are being used by healthcare staff and parents as part of patient care at Derbyshire, Leicester, Nottingham and Kings Mill Hospitals.

We’re grateful for the support of Youth Music, Leicester Hospitals CHarity, Nottingham Hospitals Charity, Sherwood Forest Hospitals Charity and Derbyshire Children’s Hospital League of Frieends for their support in creating these resources.

#TakeOneADay (for ten weeks)

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We’re delighted to bring you #takeoneaday for ten weeks, beginning on Saturday 10 October.

Every day, for ten weeks, Healthcare Musicians from OPUS will bring a specially recorded, short video performance direct to your internet connected device.

Videos will be available across our Social Media channels, as well as on our dedicated page here: www.opusmusic.org/takeoneaday

This programme is supported by funding from the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund. Thanks to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for making this possible.

Charity Single: This Won’t Last Long

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We’re delighted to launch our new charity song ‘This Won’t Last Long’, a song of hope and strength for our friends and colleagues in the NHS.

It has been written, recorded and produced in isolation whilst staying at home to help protect, and in celebration of, our NHS.

We’re happy to offer a free download of this song at our Bandcamp page.

If you like what you hear, then please support the work of the amazing Hospital Charities in Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Sherwood Forest Hospitals at our Justgiving page.

Thank you!

Nick

OPUS’ return to music-making at Leicester Children’s Hospital

An impactful return to music-making at Leicester Children's Hospital

musiccareconference

Music Care Conference - Presented in Hybrid format from Vancouver, Canada

REGISTER HERE

Marketing and Communications Manager

We're recruiting: Marketing and Communications Manager

Practicing Well Awards

Opportunity: online music-making with OPUS musicians

Request a time slot with us here...

Culture Recovery Fund

We are delighted to announce that OPUS been granted an award of just over £27,000 from the second round of the Government’s #CultureRecoveryFund. We are amongst more than 2,700 recipients to benefit from this latest round of awards.

This support will enable us to begin our transition back to practice, enhancing our online offer, and expanding it to include our training and advocacy roles.

Frances Watt, Co-Chair says:

Nick Cutts, Chief Executive says:

Online Resources for Children’s Hospitals

#TakeOneADay (for ten weeks)

Charity Single: This Won’t Last Long

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