Goodbye 2024, and hello 2025

What a year we’ve had! It feels a lot longer because so much has happened, not least that we have this space to talk in more detail about what has gone on behind the scenes. 

The first quarter of the year was frantic planning for our 2024 International Women’s Day events in Manchester and London, for the first time. After only moving down to London in September 2023, we didn’t know where to do an event, or if to do one at all, after what was such a big life change for us. However, we were inspired and encouraged by those around us and decided to take the leap and do the two events around late November, which didn’t give us much time to pull things together. 

We did our very best, and were so grateful to secure an incredible line up of panellists last January and received 47 applications to perform, or have music performed, at the events! We received sponsorship from brilliant organisations, and managed to pull things together on a very tight budget. Both events were a great success, and we were hugely inspired by everyone who performed and our panellists, who as always, spoke with such generosity and are so giving of their time. We got to connect with lots of new musicians and ensembles, especially in London, and were incredibly relieved that everything came together.

We learned a huge amount from the 2024 events. Away from the positivity we try to portray on our socials, we’re two unhealthily stressed people trying to do too much. Alongside being full time students, pulling together two events in a short space of time, each involving around 40 people and four panellists, was far too much for two people to do. The pressure became immense, and we definitely made mistakes and learned many lessons to take forward. It was a learning experience that I don’t regret for a second, but not a mental state I’d like to experience again in a hurry. 

After we recovered from the post Empower burnout, and completed our conservatoire recitals and assessments in June, we began to look to the future. We gave a lot of thought to what our priorities should be for the next year, and beyond, and started to build a plan to achieve them. We put together a portfolio of previous work and future plans, and sent it to lots of different people for advice, and eventually sent it on to funders. It was probably the most worthwhile piece of work we put together, as it focused our ideas and set out actionable goals. 

We knew we desperately needed a website. It’s so important for any organisation but we had never had the funds to do it properly before. We knew we wanted to collaborate with Showcase Creative Studio, after following their work online. After an initial meeting with Poppy, we knew we needed to go for it and if not now, when? We still didn’t have the funds but decided to jump in and do it anyway, and through the generosity of donors, we raised the money before the website was completed in October. 

We also knew that we needed help, and set about creating a team who believed in our mission and were keen to volunteer their skills and talents. Our new team of four ‘Creative Producers’ have been amazing, and even just having their support to brainstorm ideas with has been so useful. Giving away control of parts of our EMPOWER baby hasn't been easy, and we certainly aren't brilliant at it, but managing a team has been a learning curve in the best possible way, and we have lots of plans to continue to build our team going forward. 

The summer was spent making headway on the 2025 events, contacting venues and writing funding applications. After pitching to the Royal Irish Academy of Music around Easter, we knew we were going to do three events. Sam McShane had been a panellist in Manchester and is now Artistic Director at Kings Place London. When we approached her about potentially holding the London event at Kings Place, she was all for it and has been nothing but the best support since. Holding the event at Kings Place, and having to fund that, seemed incredibly daunting, but again it felt like the next big step we needed to take. 

The relief was unimaginable when our application to the PRS Early Career Promoter Fund came back successful, which was quickly followed by a positive response from the Hinrichsen Foundation. Nkoda sponsored our first ever ‘OpusHER’ competition, a new award aimed at emerging female composers. We had an unbelievable response to OpusHER, receiving 36 applications, all of which were beautifully individual and creative. Molly Arnuk, a fourth year student at the RCM, was chosen as our winner, after six shortlisted candidates were interviewed. The commission will be performed at the 2025 events and we are so excited to play it!

Our year is finishing on a high! Tickets are on sale, and the published list of panellists for London is on the Kings Place website. I cannot believe that we will be sitting with Errollyn Wallen and Jess Gilliam either side of us in March - it’s honestly a dream that I wouldn’t have believed at the start of 2024! We received over 100 applications to perform at the 2025 events, with 65 of those for London. It’s crazy to think that that many people want to perform at something we have organised and poured so much love into. Like OpusHER, it proves to us that there needs to be more opportunities like Empower. We want to do more events, but don’t have the resources to do it unpaid right now but hopefully that will change in the future. 

2024 was a year of growth, risk taking, and amazing moments! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of it - see you in 2025! 

Sinéad x