About Us
The Donegal Music Education Partnership (DMEP) provides instrumental/vocal tuition in all genres of music (classical, jazz, traditional, rock/pop) at reasonable rates to children and young adults. We can also hire out instruments. Pupils of the DMEP can join an ensemble or choir to help develop their musical and social skills.
To find out more, call us on 07491 76293, email us at musiceducation@donegaletb.ie or check out our Facebook page.
We’re part of the Donegal Education and Training Board We’re helped by funding from the Department of Education and Skills.
One of the guiding principles of the DMEP is that music has the potential to make a vital contribution to all our lives. Learning to play an instrument or singing in a choir helps to build your confidence, develops your creativity, shows the value of discipline and builds social skills. It’s also been shown to fire up lots of areas of the brain 🙂
Group and individual lessons are offered in a range of instruments. Most lessons are after school hours and on Saturdays. This tuition is largely held in the network of schools, colleges and centres operated by our parent organisation, Donegal ETB. Most of our main performing groups are based in Letterkenny. We have a junior choir in Dungloe. We try and facilitate music tuition in all areas of the county.
Well done! Mother and daughter Anne Marie Quinn (grade 4) and Emily Kelly (grade 1) with their RIAM certificates. They were learning with DMEP tutor Anderinna Gooch.
Tuition
We’re a busy organisation!
We have more than more than 400 children and young people doing weekly tuition on an instrument or voice
We have a full-time violin resource tutor and more than thirty part-time tutors
We run several performing groups, such as the Donegal Youth Orchestra, Donegal Chamber Orchestra, Donegal Youth Choir and Donegal Junior Strings, as well as an adult cello ensemble
We have 1000 children learning ukulele on our schools programme – and another 70 learning fiddle in east Donegal
During the year we’ll organise many concerts, performances, examinations, masterclasses and more, in partnership with the wider music and arts community on the island of Ireland.
It’s all good!
These young musicians aren’t quite so young anymore – but they’re still musicians (and good ones)! A photograph from Soundwaves 2017, a project delivered on behalf of Donegal Music Education Partnership by Wall2Wall Music and funded by the Music Generation/Arts Council Partnership.
Music is important first and foremost because – it’s music! From a traditional slow air to a Beethoven symphony, there’s nothing like music 🙂 Research is also coming up with more and more reasons to learn music. Musical training helps to develop language and reasoning, shows the value of discipline and helps with social skills. Students who have early music training will develop areas of the brain related to language and reasoning. And on it goes!
You can read more about the benefits of music education in this great article by the National Association for Music Education.
We’ve been presented with instrument funding from the Music Network Music Capital Scheme, funded by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. And that’s been a real boost!
