Hear and Now, the Philharmonia Orchestra's intergenerational musical dementia project, will see academics from the University investigate the impact of a participants' sense of community and wellbeing, as well as measuring the effect of work in community arts projects on professional dance artists and musicians.

Co-produced with Orchestras Live, the project, which celebrates its 10th anniversary next month and has seen over 700 people take part since its establishment in 2009, is based in Queens Park, Bedford.

Hear and Now brings together participants with dementia and their carers, from the Tibbs Dementia Foundation's Music 4 Memory Singing Group, with young musicians from the grassroots Bedford musical initiative Fusion Youth Singing.

The culmination of this year's project is a performance at the University of Bedfordshire on Sunday 17 November, which will incorporate dance, movement and film alongside the music for the first time.

Rachel Farrer, Senior Lecturer and Researcher for the School of Media and Performance at the University of Bedfordshire, said: “This is an exciting project for us to get involved in and an opportunity for the University to connect with the local community.

“We are bringing together young people and older adults from all over Bedford with professional musicians and dancers, and giving them the opportunity to perform in our state of the art theatre to a live audience. 

“We really hope that it inspires those involved from all generations to be ambitious and take on new challenges. From a research perspective, it also gives us a fantastic case study to examine in order to hear the first hand experiences of the participants who will be right on our doorstep.”

The findings examining the impact of the project on the various community groups will be presented at a BedsTalks event, Hear & Now: The impact of a holistic Arts and Heath project on participant wellbeing on Thursday 6 February 2020.