End of year news 2025

As 2025 comes to a close, we look back on our work during the year. 

‘Youth’ was a common theme, and our work centered on understanding the wants and needs of young deaf musicians. In April we delivered a series of ‘Visuality of Music’ workshops for both the Bup! Festival and Operasonic - working with deaf families, musicians, and professionals to explore themes around communication, music, and deaf awareness. We visited the British Library twice throughout the year to deliver family storytelling sessions with music and have been delighted to see an increase in the number of deaf families attending. Sessions are delivered in BSL and demonstrate that representation and role-models are important in the deaf community.  

Photos by Charlie Swinbourne at Bup!

The summer saw us continue our youth work, both in London for the Royal College of Music and in Northamptonshire with Deep Roots Tall Trees and in Roding School, Essex, Ruth delivered Noises in the Night for early years and KS1 children as part of the school’s Deaf Awareness Week. 

Consultancy was prominent throughout the year as we worked with leading organisations such as Sound of Intent and Creative Futures to deliver sessions focused on schools and the educational experience of deaf CYP studying music. These sessions brought together educators and professionals to share ideas and develop practical methodology for enhancing how deaf CYP engage in all forms of music. In the late Spring, we were invited to participate in a roundtable event at the Royal Albert Hall organised by the tri-borough music hub (Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and the City of Westminster) and Ruth shared her thoughts on inclusive practice, demonstrating her own music pedagogy for deaf CYP. 

Stepping away from the theory and into the practical, Ruth worked directly with the deaf community as part of the Edinburgh Deaf Fringe Festival - conducting research into proposed theory and connecting with local audiences to discover what was important to them in accessing music in all its forms.  This then allowed us to make an application to the Ovingdean Foundation to conduct a research project across Essex, Kent, and East London to understand the current lived-experience of young, deaf musicians aged 11 - 18 years. This research shall be published in January 2026 and will drive forward a renewed campaign for access and employment for those who wish to pursue a career in music.

Audiovisability is always exploring the visual aspects of sound and, together with Chris Wight, travelled to Brighton as part of the Flarewave Festival. They delighted the Deaf community with the Sonic Patterns workshop, demonstrating how vibrations can be transformed into an incredible art form.

Photos by Martha Wight

Never ones to sit still, we took our work international! Ruth was invited to perform in Hong Kong as part of the No Limits Festival and after thrilling on stage delivered a series of family focused workshops. Working with several language interpreters - Cantonese to English, English to BSL, and the reverse - proved to be fascinating and it was a privilege to work directly with communities outside of our own, proving that music really is universal. 

As the schools returned and the weather drew colder, we began the Essex Vibrations Project - an exciting project led by Sinfonia Viva and a series of schools in Chelmsford and Colchester. You can read about it here. Once the final concert had been performed we turned our attention to the year’s most exciting event, our Christmas Recital! Our work centers on young, deaf musicians and it was key that they played an active role in what was our centerpiece. Isaac Rogers and Alicia Wiseman, two very talented musicians, joined Ruth and Rachel Edmonds in an evening of classical music hosted at St Ethleburga’s Centre, Bishopsgate. This incredible evening was made possible thanks to a generous donation by Gloria and John McGregor. We were delighted to see a full audience and even more so to see that over half were from the BSL community. The event was a great success and has raised funds to help us continue with our work in 2026. 

Photos by John Cobb

I’d like to take a moment to thank all of you who have supported us this year - from our trustees, to our volunteers, to the generous financial supporters we have - and I’d like to thank Andrew Heath who donated a proportion of his album sales directly to Audiovisability. We received no official funding and rely on the generosity of people to keep us going and it is with the support of individuals such as those mentioned above that we are able to continue doing what we do, I am very grateful to each of you. 

All that remains is for me to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and to thank you again for your support. 

Ruth Montgomery.