Join a game-changing community
Creating new music requires innovation and risk-taking
Not all composers have this freedom. With Music Patron, you can change that.
Join a community of music lovers and help support the work of one or more composers.
Enjoy the feeling of making music happen.
What is music patron
Music Patron brings together the traditional concept of patronage with the impact of grassroots collective giving
So much of the great music of the past was sponsored by patronage, with wealthy patrons supporting composers by ensuring them an income and allowing them to devote themselves to composition.
Music Patron reimagines this idea for the 21st century and makes it accessible to any music lover, with options for one-off or regular monthly donations starting from £3.
Which composer should I support?
If you love music and are curious about the people who create it, take our quiz and discover which Music Patron composer is the best match for you.
Music Patron is a new way of supporting UK composers. It allows you to connect with composers, give them the freedom and security to create new music, and truly support their art.
Hear it from our honorary patrons
“I believe in supporting the music of tomorrow. Music Patron is a new and important way to do this. It gives ordinary people the chance to directly support a composer, provide that composer with game-changing income and help bring new music to life.”
Conductor
Choose how
to support
You can support an individual composer, or support Music Patron's overall vision.
Donate
You can give monthly or one-off, with options starting from £3.
Connect
Join a community of music lovers. Get a unique window into a composer’s world. Experience the feeling of making new music happen.
“Spending time with my composer is interesting and calming. It’s exposure to something new, a different take on the world, a few snippets of enjoyable music.”
Imagine a world with no music
The pandemic, the unstable economy, and cuts in public funding have led to less music being produced and fewer opportunities for composers to take risks and innovate.
You can have a game-changing impact on the creation of new music.
Make a meaningful connection with composers, get an insider’s view of their creative process and receive exclusive content.
Hear it from our honorary patrons
“Music Patron is a timely and generous initiative to provide for British composers the lifeline of sustainable income. It is also an intriguing and unusual way for individuals to involve themselves in something with lasting creative value.”
Composer, broadcaster
Our solution to a global problem
of composers have considered abandoning their career during the pandemic.
monthly Spotify streams are required for an artist to make minimum wage.
of composers earn less than £10,000 per year from composition work.
* Sources: Ivors Academy and The Trichordist.
Featured composer
Tom Coult
Tom Coult’s playful and seductive music has been championed by many of the UK’s major orchestras and ensembles, and in 2021 he was made Composer-in-Association with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
His first opera, Violet, with text by Alice Birch, was premiered in 2022 at the Aldeburgh Festival and on tour, and was described by The Telegraph as “the best new British opera in years”. It has already been staged in second and third productions in Paris and Ulm, Germany, in 2022 and 2023, and has won or been nominated for: an International Opera Award, a South Bank Sky Arts Award, a Critics Circle Award, an IVORS Composer Award and a UK Theatre Award.
“Jimi Hendrix first made me want to make music, Tom Waits made me want to make it unusual. Stravinsky made me want to write it down, and Pierre Boulez made me want to make it sensual.”
Tom’s music has been described as ‘funny and surreal and delicately poetic, all at once’ (The Telegraph), and ‘methodically crafted yet bewitchingly original’ (The Guardian).
Tom’s patrons can expect musings and updates documenting rehearsals, performances and recordings – “the moments when notes on page ignite with actual musicians” – as well as insights into his creative process as develops and pitches his second opera.
- Listen: Three Pieces that Disappear | Tom Coult
