Everyone can play music, everyone can gain from it. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to have a prodigious talent to play or sing, or indeed perform to a professional standard to sound good and have a good time. Music is within every one of us.

This is a principle which AC Academy is aiming to make clear to every child in the UK. AC Academy is part of the highly-regarded choir and opera company, Armonico Consort, and is an accessible and interactive education programme which seeks to bring music education to young people across the UK through after-school choirs, in-school workshops and choir creation.

There is a lot of discussion as to how to get young people interested in music and the prospect of staying after school isn’t something necessarily attractive to young people. Yet, at our first AC Academy choir rehearsal in 2007, there were 111 children signed up before we even began! The thirst for music is clearly alive and well in today’s young people – we now have over 800 children every week singing in an AC Academy Choir somewhere in the UK.

A fundamental principle to AC Academy’s approach is taking the young people we work with seriously. There is a misconception that classical music is off-putting in itself, but as long as it has a strong melody and rhythm (better still if they know it from another part of their lives) children will embrace it wholeheartedly. We once did a performance of Carmina Burana with 350 children and our choir and orchestra at the RSC, which worked fantastically well. Although the piece is in Latin and German, because it is a good piece of music (and because they’d heard it on the X Factor), the children were really enthusiastic about it.

In addition to picking a decent, engaging piece of repertoire to perform, making sure there is strong leadership in place to direct the children is key. The most important quality a choir leader needs is energy and drive. It’s crucial to keep up the pace, making sure that the children don’t get bored, rather that they are caught up in the energetic and exciting environment of rehearsals.

Teaching young people the core vocal techniques makes a world of difference. Something like a simple breathing technique, for example, has an enormous impact on the quality of a choir’s singing. It’s easy to practise and it’s simple to teach (though requires vigilance to enforce). Once they have mastered a breathing technique, a choir can make the leap from weedily emitting a hymn or two, to a full-throttle sound.

Thinking big should always be on the agenda of any music education project - it inspires the children and keeps everyone more focused and motivated. With every project we do, we make sure that the children only perform with professional, first-class musicians. We recently held a gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall, allowing over 1,300 AC Academy singers to perform in the most famous concert venue in the UK (and probably the world). It was a great way to encourage and inspire them, and a brilliant goal to aim towards.

Money doesn’t have to limit the scope of your musical project. When you put on a concert with schoolchildren, their parents are guaranteed to come and buy a ticket – making it a self-financing event. As a result, we’re able to bring in a brilliant band to perform with the children, be it a big band, West End musicians, symphony orchestra or a folk group or gospel choir.

The benefits of a music education – certainly the benefits I have witnessed in my time with AC Academy – are enormous. Music has the power to overcome social barriers with the greatest ease. At the AC Academy concert at the Royal Albert Hall last month, there were children standing next to each other, who would return to council estates and mansions that evening, as friends and fellow team members, performing with the same skills, as one.

Taking part in choirs develops confidence and self esteem. It builds skills for other subjects like Maths and English and, above all, music can provide the opportunity of security and inclusivity. AC Academy’s projects have no auditioning process – everyone is welcomed no matter what their musical ability. With the right leadership, we believe we can get anyone singing to a high standard.

Music should be everywhere. A musical education should be something offered by every school – a school choir is straightforward to set up and run and the benefits conferred as a result more than justify the work involved. AC Academy’s target is to eventually have a choir in every school across the UK. Will you join us?