Sunderland AFC's Ken Teears: music is a 'Trojan horse for social change'

29 January 2015, 17:21 | Updated: 15 December 2016, 11:50

It's not just professionals from the orchestral world at the ABO conference - we spoke to Ken Teears, development director for Sunderland Football Club's Foundation of Light.

Teears told Classic FM's Jane Jones that his experience of engaging young people with outreach programmes (with numbers of around 40,000 people involved) has lessons for the orchestral world.

"Music can be such a powerful catalyst for learning around literacy or maths or other subjects… but it can bring things to life."


And what advice would he give orchestras looking to take some advice from the work he's done in Sunderland?

"Really thinking about the role the orchestra would like to play in the community. Are they wanting more young musicians to come through? Do they want a greater audience?"