麻豆社

To mark 麻豆社 Music Day on 3 June 2016 we asked people around the country to nominate a local Unsung Hero. It’s a UK wide search to find music champions who have made, and continue to make, a difference to people’s lives through music in their community.

The five winners were selected by a 麻豆社 panel after being nominated by members of the public. The One Show will be featuring the heroes live from the Eden Project on Music Day and they will be VIP guests at the 麻豆社 Music Awards in December.

Sarah is a music teacher and mum to an 11 month old baby, yet she still finds time to run weekly rehearsals for A Choired Taste, a female voice choir that put on regular performances for charity. Sarah founded the choir in Carmarthen in October 2014 and since then it has grown to over 100 members aged 15 to 80. Some of the women in the choir have had health issues and the choir has helped them to cope with their illnesses. Sarah and the choir will be taking part in the Race for Life in Llanelli on 12 June in memory of Sarah’s mum who died of cancer when Sarah was a child.

Mary will be 90 this year and has spent a lifetime inspiring countless people to get involved in music. When she moved to London in the 1960s Mary trained as a primary teacher and quickly became a music specialist in primary schools in South London and often took her pupils to perform around the country. When she retired, she moved to Welwyn Garden City where she has continued to promote music and musical performance in the local community. She runs a small, local choir, whose members include older people and young people living in sheltered accommodation. She also attends the local recorder group and organises concerts at the local Quaker meeting house, bringing international class musicians to the area and raising money for a range of different charities.

Alyson founded the Voice of Hope choir ten years ago with the aim of bringing inspirational, joyful music to the local community in County Antrim. Since its inception the choir has raised around £80,000 to help charities such as MacMillan, Lifeline, Asha and many others. Not content with running just one choir, Alyson founded Raise The Roof Choir in 2012, to raise money to build a school in Uganda. Last year the choir met their target and construction started on the school in Masalaba, Uganda. Alyson will be travelling to Uganda later this year to officially open the school.

Jane is a community musician who works to help vulnerable people in her local community of Renfrewshire. For the last nine years Jane has run The Buddy Beat, a drumming group for adults with mental health issues. Jane also runs Singing Memories, a singing group for adults with alzheimer's and dementia, Flexi-Care, which offers after school clubs across Renfrewshire for children with autism and aspergers, and also workshops in prisons, helping inmates and their children through music.

For eight years, Mike has worked tirelessly to set up, run and grow Core Music, a non-profit, social enterprise and a hub for local music in the Hexham and Tyne Valley community. Core Music provides facilities for musicians, employs long-term unemployed people, fixes instruments as well as recycling wood into ukuleles through its Ucorelele project. They also provide a service lending instruments to people interested in learning to play at no charge.