About us

Our core values are to ‘inspire, nurture and excel’ and to provide the young people of Northamptonshire with musical and artistic opportunities.

What we offer

We offer a range of enrichment programmes for schools and individuals of all ages around the county. Our highly talented team of teachers are able to provide teaching on musical instruments at every school in the county. We offer a full range of instruments and musical styles and currently teach 15,000 students in ‘First Access’ – whole class instrumental lessons or small groups.

There are 12 Saturday Music and Performing Arts Centres, (plus one on a Thursday evening) and 4 NMPAT Contemporary Centres at venues around the county. The centres are open to everybody and exist to provide an educational and fun environment for any young person interested in the Arts.

We run a programme of residential courses for young musicians and some of the county groups. We also have an extensive programme of concerts and events throughout the year, including many regular fixtures in our calendar.

Northamptonshire is renowned for the high standard of its ensembles, with over 1,000 young musicians involved in our award winning County Music and Drama Groups.

We are also the biggest providers of instrumental music lessons to individuals in the county. Lessons take place at our Kettering Road Music and Arts Centre in Northampton and at a variety of venues around Northamptonshire. Kettering Road is also the home for our Youth Theatre, Northampton Rock and Early Years Music classes.

About the trust

In April 2012 the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust was established as an Independent Charitable Company after 40 years trading as the former Local Authority Music Service.

Shortly afterwards NMPAT was appointed the lead partner in the new Northamptonshire Music Education Hub (NMEH) and in September 2013 was invited to take over the lead role in the Rutland Music Education Hub, Rutland Music, now established as a subsidiary charity. Working with other local Music and Arts groups the Hubs will oversee the local delivery of the government’s National Music Plan.

Job vacancies

All of our vacancies, both teaching and administrative, will be posted here.

Our role as a Music Education Hub

Information on all of our partners and Rutland Music Education Hub.

Policies

Information on all of our policies, including how we keep children safe, what we do when recruiting staff and our policy on photographs.

Student success stories

We value all of our students and their experiences. Here are a selection of stories from former students about their time at NMPAT.

Trustees, funders and partners

We could not continue our valuable work without the contributions of our partners and trustees.

Where to find us

Donate using Local Giving

Make a donation

Donate using Virgin Money Giving

Make a donation

Coronavirus and NMPAT

Monday 30th March update

With the on-going national response to the Coronavirus epidemic, all face to face activity delivered by NMPAT has now been put on hold and our Kettering Road office is closed. Our teams are working remotely, and whilst we can’t answer the phone you can contact the office by email at office@nmpat.co.uk

We understand that the cancellation of activities, events, exams and more is of a great disappointment to many. We would like to reassure you that as an organisation we are doing everything we can to stay healthy during this challenging time and that County Groups, Saturday Centres, lessons and all of our face to face activities will recommence as soon as we are permitted to do so. Planning is underway for September and audition information and requirements will be available on line at the start of the summer term. We will provide updates on the audition process and schedule, as soon as we are able to confirm these details.

You may be aware that we are currently in the process of testing online remote teaching platforms with a small number of staff. Once we have established a robust mechanism, we hope that this may be a means by which we can stay in touch.

Where payments have been made for lessons, membership or tickets for events which have been cancelled, we will be in touch directly with those affected, to discuss options around credits and refunds.

Updates will continue to be provided on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – please do share in our NMPositiviT.

We all look forward to making music together again soon. Until then, keep practising and stay safe…

30th March 2020