In 2000 a further development of the programme took place at The Hub, Edinburgh’s Festival Centre and the new headquarters of the Edinburgh International Festival. The main hall of The Hub provided an opportunity to develop a different kind of creative workshop for the Connecting to Music programme, using a much larger space than that normally available in schools.

As part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s Music of the Millennium project, The Art of Listening introduced children to creative ways of listening, exploring our inherent musicality through physical participation and exercises using music and the imagination. These workshops used the essentials of the Connecting to Music programme, along with new activities and a newly devised CD Rom presentation that explored ideas of time and timelessness in relation to listening to music. The workshops were mainly for Primary 7 classes, with some Primary 6 involvement.

In Autumn 2003, with a small development grant from the Scottish Arts Council, the Connecting to Music programme was re-started to work for six months with Primary 7 school children in Edinburgh. Each class that took part in the programme attended three half-day workshops, over a three-week period, in the main hall at The Hub in Edinburgh. Each group included a maximum of thirty children, and bus travel was provided from individual schools to The Hub free of charge. The teaching team comprised a Project Leader, a Project Assistant/Chaperone and a professional workshop musician (cellist), with additional teaching support from the Edinburgh International Festival’s Programme Development Manager. The use of live music became a central part of the programme.

In 2004 Bank of Scotland began a four-year sponsorship of the programme. The project was renamed the Bank of Scotland Connecting to Music Programme and it grew considerably in strength. It was offered on a year round basis to all Primary 7 classes in all Edinburgh primary schools. Since 2004 twelve schools per term - thirty-six schools, or school groups, per year - have received the programme. It is consistently over-subscribed.

Between 2004 and 2006 with additional funding from Bank of Scotland, the programme moved beyond Edinburgh, delivering a short series of whole day workshops for primary schools in the Western Isles of Barra and Harris, East Lothian and Glasgow. Workshops for adults were specially devised for Bank of Scotland staff in their workplace location in Dundee, Dunfermline and Motherwell.

As the programme developed new initiatives were introduced, in particular the use of visual art and the making of visual art as a way of helping children access classical music. This approach proved enormously successful and has continued to develop over the years of the programme. From 2007 Connecting to Music offered schools two full-day workshops - Way of Listening and Ways of Seeing – a dynamic and fun introduction to classical music and art more generally.

Ways of Listening introduces children to the idea that music affects us in our inner, personal world, through a series of Focused Listening exercises designed to engage the imagination and a sense of self. A professional cellist performs for the children, and through fun, practical drawing exercises the children explore and increase their understanding of the music and the role they play as a listener.

Ways of Seeing explores the connections between music and visual art. Taking a piece of music as the inspiration, the children develop visual ideas using line, shape and colour, culminating in the creation of their own piece of artwork. The children are encouraged to understand, describe and interpret non-verbal language.

Between 1996 and 2007 the Connecting to Music programme, including the Art of Listening, will have worked with nearly 7,000 children and young people across Scotland, and over 500 adults. By the end of 2007 the Bank of Scotland Connecting to Music programme at The Hub will have reached over 4,000 school children alone.

To ensure a lasting legacy for this enormously successful programme Bank of Scotland, the Foundation for the Sports and the Arts and the Nancie Massey Charitable Trust have provided funds for this website resource, available to school teachers and anybody interested in listening to music and engaging with art.

The overall aims of the Connecting to Music programme are to:

• Nourish the individual by cultivating the imagination through the use of music and art.
• Cultivate an understanding of the meaning of art in the process of living.
• Explore an experiential and participative approach to listening.
• Introduce Western classical music by developing creative skills for listening.
• Encourage the enjoyment of listening to Western classical music.
• Explore and encourage the listener’s personal response to music.
• Break down the pre-conceptions sometimes held about Western classical music.
• Explore the dynamic between the musician and the individual / audience.
• Increase the accessibility of Western classical music across the age range.