Students with disability aged between eight and 14 can now apply for the recently announced Adaptive Music Bridging Program, which will provide new adaptive music technologies, musical instruments and teaching techniques to students who have a disability, chronic illness, mental health condition, or who are Deaf or neurodiverse.

A student plays The Magic Flute, an electronic wind instrument played without the use of the hands. Photo supplied

The Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne is partnering with Melbourne Youth Orchestras to deliver the program, which will be led by Dr Anthea Skinner. An ethnomusicologist specialising in disability music culture, Skinner has a lived experience of disability and is a member of the award-winning, all-disabled Bearbrass Asylum Orchestra. She has been published by prestigious journals including Disability and Society and Sexualities, as well as Cambridge University Press and NewSouth.

She told Limelight, “As a musician with disability, I’ve been adapting musical instruments and technologies for myself, my colleagues and friends since I was a child. I learnt very quickly that if someone has the desire to be creative, there are always ways to make it happen and that even...