Welcome.
If you’ve landed here, you probably like what we do. That makes us very happy. We would be nothing without our community of audiences, artists, collaborators and funders who believe in our work.
We know deep down that music changes lives – perhaps you do too. But we can’t make it alone. This is truly a team effort. At the moment we must raise about 10% of our annual income through individual donations just to make ends meet. That’s about £75,000. A heady sum, especially for a small team with no dedicated fundraiser.
Please help us by making a donation. Whether it’s just a few pounds or a much larger gift, we really feel the impact of your support. Manchester Collective is a lean operation. Your investment goes directly to living artists, performers and creators. This kind of collective action is what enables creation, innovation and access.
Don’t leave it to the next person. Here are some of the ways you can help.
On The Road
Set up a monthly gift – whether it’s £3, £30 or £300 you can make a real difference.
Our work isn’t just about the great concert halls. We’re committed to touring our shows to places where classical music is a little harder to come by – venues like Future Yard in Birkenhead or The White Hotel in Salford, where local residents and those on lower incomes can get tickets for just £10.
A tenner for the same quality that you get at the Southbank Centre or Manchester International Festival isn’t a bad deal at all. But of course, those ticket prices don’t come close to covering the cost of the work. Our supporters are what keeps the tour bus on the road.
As a regular supporter, you will receive:
updates on the impact your contribution is making to our work
invites to special meet-ups and events for our supporter community
Black Angels at Future Yard, Birkenhead
Brave New Music
Join our Commissioning Club with a one-off donation of £500 or £40/month.
Making brilliant new music is our bread and butter, and by supporting this fund you are helping commission the stone-cold classics of the future – pieces like ‘Neon’, a woozy, trancelike work written for us in 2020 by Hannah Peel.
Hannah’s piece has made it all the way from Salford and Birkenhead to the BBC Proms and Apple’s 2025 keynote event, via an international record release… So, you see, small gestures add up to something big.
A new musical work can cost anywhere from £2,500 to £20,000, taking many months for the composer to create. Not only do we commission new music each and every season, we put those living artists front and centre. We tour their work, we record it, we champion it. This changes lives and careers for the better. By joining our commissioning community, you gain access to:
an exclusive invitation to attend rehearsal of commissioned new music, with an opportunity to meet the composer
an annual pre-show drinks event with Collective staff and artists
the sweet satisfaction of bringing brand-new music into the world
Trailblazing Artists
Fund a trailblazing artist bursary for £1,200 annually, or £100/month.
Whether it's employing classical musicians at the height of their power, taking a risk on early career voices, or empowering brilliant creatives to experiment with classical for the first time, artists are the lifeblood of the Collective.
On average, it costs us about £1,800 to employ a single musician for a Manchester Collective project. And that’s not including the cost of their travel or accommodation while on the road. For a string orchestra show featuring 17 musicians, we’re looking at artist costs upwards of £30,000.
We also know that Western classical music training is long, challenging and resource-heavy. It’s dependent on access and support in early childhood. Our groundbreaking scheme EXPERIMENTA opens doors for music innovators who are curious about classical but have had limited or no access it.
In offering an artist a bursary, you will have:
an opportunity to witness our process and the ways in which we tackle barriers to access
exclusive behind-the-scenes invitations to meet the artists
a dedicated point of contact within the Manchester Collective team
To discuss a named bursary, please contact Linda Begbie on +44 7951 790703 or linda@manchestercollective.co.uk.
Manchester Collective co-founder Rakhi Singh
Future Fund
Help secure the future of Manchester Collective with a gift of £5,000 or more.
If you have the means and would like to make a larger investment in our work, then please contact us. With your help, we can change the future of classical music.
Perhaps you’d be interested in sponsoring a major new work: taking a piece of art from conception all the way to performance on the international stage. Or maybe you’re all about the artists, and you’d like to directly support the chair of our co-artistic director, Rakhi Singh.
Perhaps your passion is education, and you want to enable a crucial new strand of artist development work, delivering cutting-edge training for freelance musicians, reaching young artists from underrepresented backgrounds, or enriching the classical scene in the north.
Perhaps you are interested in our bravest, riskiest projects. Whatever it is, let us know.
To join our Future Fund, please contact Linda Begbie on +44 7951 790703 or linda@manchestercollective.co.uk.
The Oracle at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
With thanks to our current major donors, and to those who have chosen to give anonymously.
Alex Begbie
Steven Brosnan
Helen Gilman & Malcolm Pitcher
Jonathan & Ariella Green
Catrin Griffiths
Jo Holden
Andrew Horner
Emma Howard-Boyd & Iain Boyd
Peter Kenyon
Mollie Marshall
David & Mary McKeith
John Nicholas
Richard Nowell
Richard & Helen Sheldon
Adrienne Spilsbury
Martin Staniforth
Mike Taylor
Christopher & Karen Vaughan
Helen Wallace
Experimental programming.
Daring collaborations.
Radical human experiences.
