The selected cities in the UK are Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds and Liverpool and in Europe, Graz, Austria and Groningen, the Netherlands. These cities were chosen because each has a distinctive classical music scene, and a ‘lead academic’ interested in the future of classical music in some way. The project will focus on audience research, the careers of composers, performers and other music graduates, and the ‘arts ecology’, meaning how organizations fit together in a place. 

Some of the objectives of the project include the creation of a network of academics and practitioners with ambitions to strengthen and innovate the classical music sector, to devise a framework to facilitate building of networks, to identify and address the barriers to classical music organisations working together, to challenge entrenched assumptions about the training and career paths of classical musicians, to effect meaningful change in the cities where the network is focused and build new partnerships for future collaborative working.