About Me

I worked at Britten Pears Arts (formerly Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh Music), as Phillipa Reive, from 1999 to 2021. Under my leadership, the Community Department became an award-winning year-round programme, delivering high-quality music projects with an increasingly important contribution to the health and wellbeing agenda. In 2018, I became Director of the Music Programme, responsible for all music teams at Britten Pears Arts: Artist Development, Community, Performance, Public Engagement and Shared Thinking. I was responsible for programme development and partnership building in order for Britten Pears Arts to be the leading national resource for music, health and wellbeing, bringing together different sectors and professional communities to connect research and practice. 

 

After leaving school, my journey began with studying at Liverpool University and Bath College of Higher Education. Then, after teaching music in a large comprehensive school in Liverpool I went on to work at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Glyndebourne. Until recently, I sat on the National Centre for Creative Health working group as part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Arts Health & Wellbeing, and was a member of the Advisory Group for the Cambridge Institute of Music Therapy Research. 

 

I am now a qualified coach and in addition I am a volunteer, adviser and trustee for a number of projects that are close to my heart including Widowed & Walking UK (which I founded in 2024), Music To Die For (co-founded with Dr Hazel Harrison in 2025), The Brain Tumour Charity, Streetwise Opera, City of London Sinfonia and SoundVoice. I have worked with the National Centre for Creative Health and the Arts & Humanities Research Council as a Lived Experience Expert and my writing has been published by Flourish Magazine, the Global Compassion Coalition and the National Centre for Creative Health.