Made with Music Leeds: Co-director on Yorkshire brass bands, sight loss and her Youth Music Award

Decades on, she is co-director of Leeds-based charity Made with Music, which makes playing and seeing live performances accessible for families in environments suitable for disabled and non-disabled participants.

Growing up in south London, Kathryn found that she loved to sing and play the trumpet, and would seek out all different kinds of music.

“I just think it really helped me to kind of process my identity and grow in those difficult teenage years,” says Kathryn, who now lives in Ilkley.

What really interested this Londoner was traditional Yorkshire brass band music. “We didn't have brass bands or anything like that in London, really. Whenever we had masterclasses or anything at school – I was part of the borough bands and orchestras – they would bring down people from Yorkshire because they're the best brass players.”

The sounds of bands from these pit towns in the north of England also inspired her to study music in the region and, having swapped her trumpet for a euphonium but focusing mainly on singing, started a music degree at the University of Leeds in 2000.

However, while doing her studies she experienced sight loss. Though she is not certain what caused it, her optic nerve became inflamed and it damaged the sight in both eyes.

She had to go home to London for a while and says she didn’t even want to listen to music at that point.

“It was a funny reaction to turn away from it completely when you're in a difficult place, but I think it's when you can't do it in the same way that you're used to,” she says.

She recovered temporarily and decided to study abroad for a year. “I just always wanted to go somewhere else and know what it was like to live there. I know that sounds very self-indulgent, but when you experience that kind of loss – and I needed support to do everything – so when it recovered, I just wanted to do something on my own, in a different place where no one knew that as well. With the university, you can study music in different countries as well, so I went to Siena in Italy for a year of my degree.”

At the age of 27, her sight loss occurred again and, although she has some vision, says it is unlikely to recover. That happened just before she married husband Rob and fluctuated while pregnant with her daughter Chloe, now 12, which was “quite a challenge”.

After university, she had worked in a range of music jobs for various organisations and while at Opera North met Hannah Dilworth.

In 2012, they started Made with Music, a not-for-profit which provides live music for families of all ages and abilities with ‘mini gigs’, workshops, performances and classes, and it became a charity in 2018.

It allowed her to get back into work in a safe environment with friends, families and her own daughter.

Kathryn, 42, says: “It's disabled and non-disabled people working together to make music or listen to music or enjoy music together. It's often for families, and we put really small things in place, like a lot of advanced information.”

For example, they work closely with the local perinatal mental health service, helping parents with social anxiety by creating photo and video guides showing them exactly what to expect from sessions.

"All of our projects have come from participants,” says Kathryn. “So our mini gigs started because loads of parents of disabled children said ‘We don't ever get to listen to live music’. And then when we consulted with wider families, they said, ‘Actually, we don't either, because they're always at night, you have to find a babysitter, you have to plan so much in advance. Wouldn't it be nice to do something together with the whole family?’”

After Easter, there will be a new inclusive ensemble group starting at Leeds Conservatoire for people who need extra support to make music with others.

The charity operates using the social model of disability, looking at how at how they can adapt their working environment to accommodate the needs of those they work with, rather than expecting disabled people to overcome barriers.

Back when they started in 2012, putting that concept into practice was “not common at all,” says Kathryn. "I found it incredibly difficult to participate in kind of any classes with my child because people just don't understand sight loss. They don't understand that you might be able to see a bit, but I can't follow instructions, really, if they're not verbal. So it's quite difficult to go to stuff where you're expected to watch all the time and copy what people are doing without real prompts.

"So I found it quite difficult and isolating at that stage, to go to these groups, because becoming a mum anyway is a real change, and it's kind of a change in identity, and then if you add a disability on, it's quite a challenge, really, to feel like you fit into that group, and having to explain every time things that you don't necessarily want to explain. So it didn't feel common to me, and it felt like there were groups for disabled people and groups for non-disabled people, and nothing that brought people together.

"And certainly, I feel like disabled parents are largely a thing that's ignored. Like, ‘oh, surely disabled people don't have children?’ It just felt like it was very natural for us to do it.”

In October last year, Kathryn won the Inspirational Music Leader Award at the Youth Music Awards 2024 at London venue Troxy. She was awarded for her work supporting families and advocating for greater accessibility and inclusion in the music industry through Made with Music.

“It was just an amazing honour, because we're a really small organisation. It’s founded through personal need and experience and wanting to support other people that are going through those kind of times. So, yeah, it felt really big to win a national award and be in London and have people hear about what I do and my life and the work that Made with Music does. It felt really special.”

The next Mini Gig is on Sunday, February 9 2025 between noon and 3pm at the Brudenell Social Club in Hyde Park, Leeds. For information and tickets, visit: www.madewithmusic.co.uk