WEMA Welcomes World-Renowned Benedetti Foundation for a Week of Residency Sessions
From 23–27 November 2026, WEMA will host a full week of Residency Sessions from The Benedetti Foundation, a music education charity founded by world-renowned, Grammy-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti CBE.
The residencies are a major addition to WEMA’s offer to young musicians in the region, as the Benedetti Foundation has a stellar reputation in classical music education. Founded in 2019, these residencies are highly regarded because they combine elite musical excellence with community impact.
Nicola Benedetti won the GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2020, was appointed a CBE in 2019, awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2017, and an MBE in 2013, and she has since gone on to become Festival Director of the Edinburgh International Festival.
The Foundation she built in 2019 exists to challenge classical music’s reputation for exclusivity, not reinforce it: it deliberately targets areas of the UK where high-quality music education is restricted or under-resourced because of geography or cost, working to give world-class teaching to children who would rarely otherwise get near it.
In its first five years, the Foundation’s programmes reached over 100,000 participants across 137 countries, so WEMA is delighted that this successful and impactful programme will now be on offer to children in our own region.
For WEMA, this residency is in harmony with our own mission – to give access to live, expert-led music-making for children who might never otherwise get the chance. Across the week, professional musicians will lead workshops in primary schools, free CPD will be offered to both classroom and instrumental teachers, and the week will close with a Mass Strings Day bringing together young string players from across the region for a shared performance.
It’s a rare opportunity for our region’s young musicians, and for the teachers who support them, to work alongside one of the most significant music education movements in the country today.
The November sessions will aim to reach 1,200 primary school children, giving them the experience of live music-making with professional musicians. Classroom teachers get free CPD to build confidence bringing music into everyday teaching, while instrumental and string teachers across the region get a full day of professional development. Finally, young string players will come together for a Mass Strings Day building towards a shared performance.
To find out more, including booking links, click the button below.
