A Proud Moment: Getting Composing Into The Curriculum Means The World

Friday, 15^th of May 2026

#composing #NationalCurriculum #MatthewColeridge #BreathOfLife #LFCCM #GCSEmusic  

At a concert of Matthew Coleridge’s wonderful Breath Of Life, premiered last year and just released as an album. This work started as a setting of psalms, then expanded to take in texts from Christopher Smart, Khalil Gibran and John Muir. One of Matthew’s many talents is word-setting and this shines through especially the words of Rig Veda – Arise! The Breath, the Life again has reached us. / The darkness is gone. The light is come. Arise! – and Rabindranath Tagore – Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers. 

Then after the concert, in the Wilton Arms, was a young A level student in her last year at school, who said composing in GCSE Music had been the making of her. When I told her I got composing into the curriculum in 1992, she gasped, ‘I can’t believe you did that! How did you do it?’ To be honest, I can’t remember exactly how I did it but I do recall getting many musicians to write in to the Minister (Ken Clarke) and then securing two meetings with him. I know that GCSE Music numbers shot up from that moment, but it’s even better to hear that someone’s life changed as a result. 

And it doesn’t end there. Matthew Coleridge was one of the first beneficiaries taking GCSE Music (with composition) in the 1990s! And when I look around now, there are a lot of composers in their 20s, 30s, 40s. When I was that age, there were hardly any.