MUSIC is possibly the most transformative of the arts, and since 1936 the Workers’ Music Association has been exploring the possibilities inherent in allying that with the transformative political project.

I am typing this still in the sparkly glow from the 2024 WMA Summer School, which finished last week — I am proud to be jazz tutor at the school, and a vice president of the association.

Most other summer schools focus on a particular style of music, or even a particular instrument. The WMA school, held at Ingestre Hall near Stafford, is far more ecumenical, offering various strands of classical music, folk, jazz and a wide range of opportunities for singers across the spectrum.

There’s no formal pop or rock course, mainly because there are so many musics, all quite distinct, that fall under those banners. But plenty of both still gets sung and played during the week.

This means that the music you will hear played over the course of the school is almost impossibly varied, and also gives players of an instrument a chance to try something they might not get at home, in the most supportive environment imaginable.

Viola players rub shoulders with saxophonists, drummers with flautists. We have a full-sized choir, large and small jazz ensembles, chamber groups and orchestras. Two singers made their public debuts singing with a band.

Several new compositions were aired (there is a composers’ class). New friendships were formed, and old ones renewed. Music-making starts at 9.30am, and only meal breaks intervene till midnight. Everywhere you turn, there is music.

WMA Summer School has had a number of homes over the years, for a long time based at Wortley Hall, near Sheffield. Ingestre Hall is owned by Stafford Educational Services, and is a performing arts establishment.

Like Wortley, it is a former stately home — it’s interesting to trace the class-based nature of such buildings, with two large, high-ceilinged floors for the “family” and a parallel network of much shabbier and low-ceilinged rooms where the staff worked and lived. It’s ours now!

It was clearly stated in the early years of my attendance at Summer School, when I was still a student, that “Summer School is not a performance school” — meaning that exquisite performances are not the point.

There are many performances, and most of them are very, very fine — in a good year you will hear and see several things that you would have paid for a ticket for — and of course people work hard to present their art in the best possible light.

But it might be that someone has only just started on their instrument: they will be welcomed and supported just as much as any virtuoso, and if they go home having had a wonderful experience, and full of renewed enthusiasm and with a portfolio of things to work on — exactly as I did the first time I went — then that is the point.

The renowned conductor Martyn Brabbins said exactly the same thing about his first Summer School experience, and I’ve had similar conversations with other people too. Summer School changes lives.

This year we were proud to welcome Chilean singer and songwriter Francisco Carrasco to talk about the Nueva Cancion Chilena/New Chilean Song movement, and to sing songs connected with that.

Carrasco was a refugee from Pinochet’s Chile, and after the coup his father was arrested and detained for over a year without his family knowing where he was, or if he was even alive — as thousands were not at the hands of Pinochet’s death squads.

On his release in 1975 the family gathered what they could and flew to Leeds where Francisco, then 11, landed without being able to speak a word of English. He now lives in Liverpool, and works to foster and promote Latin American culture in north-west England.

We took the Latin theme over the whole school where possible, with the jazz students performing El Pueblo Unido/The People United and the Carlos Puebla Cuban revolutionary song Hasta Siempre Commandante/So Long Commandant, a string quartet arrangement of Victor Jara’s La Partida/The Departure, and two of Astor Piazzolla’s tunes.

The WMA has been in existence for nearly 90 years. In that time, a lot has changed, whole styles of music have been invented and the landscape of left politics has mutated more than once. But the core ethos of the WMA still remains, our commitment to the liberation of all people, through collective effort, in the political and musical fields remains unwavering.

We have a long and proud history, certainly — but as Ornette Coleman put it: “Tomorrow is the Question.” We are already planning our future events and actions, including the 2025 Summer School, August 15-22. You might care to join us.