Sounding Board 'Radical acts of community music' issue

This edition of Sounding Board has been a long time coming. During years of off-topic side talks at community music events we frequently found ourselves returning to a particular topic and questions, such as: ‘Are we following in the footsteps of where community music came from?’; ‘How have we evolved?’; ‘Have we shifted into something else?’; and if so, ‘What have we gained and what have we lost along the way?’ ; 'Are we mainstream now when we used to be on the fringes?' - AND if that is the case, 'Is there still a ‘fringeness’ to our practice?'; 'If we were on the fringe, does that necessarily mean we were radical?';  'Are these questions even relevant for community musicians today?'. And finally, 'How do our practices as community musicians and those we observe connect with a particular, well-walked, but often elusive insistence that the field is a ‘radical practice’?'.

During a coffee break at 2025’s Community Music Now event in Leeds, we decided to bring these discussions to a wider conversation, the fruits of which you are reading today. Through the articles in this edition, we glimpse a breadth of wisdom on this question, built on decades of work by experienced practitioners instrumental in the development of community music, as well as those who joined our community music movement more recently. These diverse perspectives highlight an insistence we’ve always circled back to: that for community music to be ‘radical’ doesn’t just mean singing The Internationale in a street choir at a demonstration. Rather, the radical acts of community music are frequently subtle, quiet, and woven into the DNA of our practices. Read the latest issue here.