The Musically Unorthodox Summit grew from more than a decade of work by In Music In Media, using music and media to engage, develop and create opportunities for young people who don’t always connect with traditional education and career pathways.

In 2018, support from Youth Music helped bring Musically Unorthodox to life, initially taking culturally relevant music education into schools before evolving into a wider platform for creative development, industry access and progression. Further Youth Music support helped establish our own creative space and expand the programmes available to young people at different stages of their journey.

Through this work, one challenge kept becoming clearer: opportunities existed, but the pathways between them were often disconnected.

Schools, colleges, grassroots organisations, youth services and the creative industries were all doing valuable work, but young people, particularly those outside traditional education and employment routes could still struggle to understand what support existed, how to access it and where to go next.

That question led us to Pathways Into Music, whose work focuses on connecting music education and the music industry and helping people understand and navigate careers in music. Bringing together their knowledge of music career pathways with In Music In Media’s grassroots experience created the foundation for a new kind of conversation.

In 2025, the first Musically Unorthodox Summit brought that conversation into the room connecting young creatives, educators, community organisations and industry to begin exploring how we could collectively build better pathways into creative careers.

What began as a conversation has since become an ongoing process of listening, learning, connecting, testing and tracking change, with the annual Summit bringing the ecosystem together and the MU Hub documenting the conversations, findings, projects and developments throughout the year.