‘A musical and creative place that you can’t find anywhere else.’

That’s how one of the recent University of Hull trainees at the Creative Infusions Music Education (CIME) described the centre on Newland Avenue. A musical hub in a busy and diverse area of the city, CIME celebrates its first birthday this May and wants to continue bringing musical education to the city and supporting people, both the young and the old, in their creative and musical journeys, whatever stage they are at. This includes an exciting Piano Day project with a link to the University of Hull.

“The local high street is forever changing but we have been welcomed by other local businesses who we now work with and feel a part of the community here,” said Rhiannon Evans, the founder and Director.  “Our main collective drive as tutors here is that we care about every single client. We want to help them learn and achieve and we will always be flexible in our teaching strategies.”

This idea of community is central to the work of CIME, and they are very much part of the University of Hull network. Rhiannon herself is a graduate, having completed her BA English in 2014, and more recently her MRes English in 2023, and many of the other tutors and staff at the centre being students and alumni. This year, their Piano Day celebrations will be linked to a University of Hull student’s final year project.

On the 88^th day of every year, to symbolize the 88 keys on the piano, the world celebrates World Piano Day. This year CIME will be marking the occasion with a day of activities, events, music and a special ‘Musical Impressions’ project that centres around a piano that has been donated to the centre.

“This year, CIME is bringing pianos, performances and music education to the people,” said Rhiannon. “Our contacts at Gough and Davey’s have very kindly gifted us an ‘art’ piano, that was used for their piano day event last year and was given to them by a local artist and pub landlady.  We are going to turn the piano into a community project on March 29th! The piano will be painted in black and gold (our brand colours) and then placed outside for anyone to pick a paint and put their handprint on the piano, signifying their place in the CIME community. This project called ‘Musical Impressions’ is being run by our Head of Administration, Projects and Events, Jen Vasey.”

“I have found my dream music career at CIME,” said Jen, who is a third year music student at the University of Hull. “The Piano Day project is being used as a template for my Future of the Arts Module. This module focuses on doing what we love with music whilst making it economically friendly and sustainable. With the Piano Day project, I wanted to provide something for the community whilst placing importance on looking after our planet and environment. The piano is recycled and has had two homes previously. By using an older instrument, it shows people the difference buying second hand can make. Not only is it cheaper than buying new (which is usually a contender when choosing a piano) but it stops all the emissions released in the process of making a new one. We are making sure this project has a small impact environmentally and we will be happy if we can help our community make changes to better the environment too.”

The connection to the University of Hull is particularly important to Rhiannon. She still keeps in contact with her lecturers, tutors and peers from her time as a student, and still feels a part of the Music faculty at the University. Many of CIME’s tutors are graduates from the Faculty and are still members of the Universities bands and musical groups.

“We work closely to nurture musical talent and careers in Hull,” said Rhiannon. “We have also worked with the University to produce an album of all of our clients’ festive songs. This has inspired many of our students to continue writing music, and for school leavers it has inspired them to consider applying to take Music at Degree level. We are still building contacts at the University and hope to work on plenty more opportunities together.”

For anyone who is interested in learning more about CIME and how they are supporting building a musical community in Hull, there are lots of opportunities to find out more and there’s always lots going on.

“We offer a large range of instrumental tuition for fun, for therapy and for achievement offering grades 1-8 in most instruments,” said Rhiannon. “Lessons are entirely bespoke 1:1 sessions where our in-house trained tutors who listen and engage adapting to their clients needs.  We also offer group music sessions, currently in clarinet, ukulele, singing and violin. These groups are open to everyone- beginners included- and are based on building a musical community. They are a lot of fun!  We also host in-house events such as the CIME jazz fest, CIME Christmas celebration which all have an educational aspect to the day and where clients, tutors and the public can perform. CIMEs musicians can also be booked for events and last year we attended many local Christmas functions providing the music and  working with the wider community.” 

People can visit the centre at 189 Newland Avenue, HU5 2EN and meet the team.

Alternatively you can email at info@cimemusicedu.co.uk.

They are also available on social media and at events where they hope to meet as many people as possible to inspire music and learning in Hull and beyond!