NewarkMusicCampaign.org starts with the students from violin making, guitar making, woodwind repair, and piano restoration and tuning, the four course that comprise the Newark School of Musical Instrument Crafts. Since news broke about the decision to cancel the degree course, excluding our current foundation year students from a place on the first year in September 2025, we have been joined by alumni, musicians, and the local community in campaigning to save the Newark School of Musical Instrument Craft.

Last year the value of music to the UK economy was valued at £7.6Billion. It is impossible to estimate the value of a few makers and repairers to this total figure, without the people to fix and make musical instruments there is no music. Our alumni go on to maintain thousands of instruments belonging to county music services, all the way up to making instruments for professional musicians, and taking care of the instruments played by the leading musicians, bands and orchestras in this country, so a tiny number of students have an enormous impact on music nationally. As many as 60% of our students have come from overseas, returning to countries that don’t have similar courses of their own, and serving to support music in places from Palestine and Cyprus to Australia and Canada.

Help us to create a sensible and sustainable future for the schools of musical instrument craft, and help us to spread the word about its intangible value to the whole world. Whether you are listening to a live performance, learning to play a new instrument or simply listening to the hold music on the telephone, the spirit of a Newark maker or technician is somewhere in your experience of music.

For enquiries email us: savenewarkchallenge@gmail.com