In 2024 Britten Pears Arts is exploring the theme of Compassionate Communities in relation to end of life, grief and loss across all strands of our activity.

Loss touches us all at some point in our lives. Working closely with St. Elizabeth Hospice we are delivering a series of activities and music programming to help build compassionate communities.

The aim of the Compassionate Communities movement is to acknowledge the major but under-recognised, the least spoken about, and the often-overlooked human experiences in all communities of serious illness, ageing, dying, caregiving and loss. We hope to explore this through music programming, community work, heritage and archive, volunteering, training, environment, and visual arts. We recognise that music and the arts play a vital role in processing grief and loss and a medium through which we can give voice to expressions of loss. Our wider activity and unique environment can also lend itself to creative and healing experiences.

In this Spark! event we aim to bring together artists/musicians and cultural organisations, health, social care and community representatives to explore and promote the role of the arts and culture in building compassionate communities.