John: The idea behind Open Academy is to extend the reach of training that we give to students and to encourage performers to interact with a wider range of audiences - both inside and outside of the Academy. Third-year undergraduates all take part in the Music in Community course, where they work with guest musicians from a range of backgrounds and learn ways to introduce and explore music in a variety of settings - from toddler groups to residential care homes. This year, we've added an elective for a smaller number of fourth-year students who wish to study this in more detail and develop their creative leadership skills. As well coming to seminars at the Academy, all of the students on the elective observe and take part in workshops around London. That's where Pete and Julia come in.

Pete: I chose this course particularly because I feel passionate about music and want to communicate that love to others. That's just as important to me as the opportunity to get some skills together which I'll definitely use after I've left the Academy. I find it really inspiring watching and trying to understand how people communicate. Getting involved with all age groups and all walks of life - that's what keeps music alive.

Julia: When I heard about the class before I took it last year, I didn't really know what it was for. Outreach work doesn't have a high profile yet in Ireland. But after the first few classes, I got into it and realised that I really enjoyed it. When we got into the practical sessions, with experts coming in, I found it very motivating and it made a refreshing change from all my other playing! It got me thinking - hopefully I can bring this sort of work back to Ireland when I start working professionally there.

Pete: For me it's also been interesting working in a creative context with classical musicians, because obviously they're amazing players technically. It's been interesting to examine the way that different musicians find space around each other, and take that back to a conventional jazz context.

Julia: The improvisation in particular is quite different to what I do anywhere else, being so much less structured. Over an hour and a half class, you see people loosen up. Seeing how children listen has helped me to consider what I play and how I'm playing it. How does somebody respond who's never sat through a classical concert before?

Pete: The session we did with toddlers the other day in Summertown was amazing, using it to draw children into the repertoire. Julia:When they walked in their minds were completely clean, fresh. We just came in and started playing.

Pete: Because lots of this work is 'on the fly', you have to adapt to the situation. We played some ideas which we'd hoped would suggest jumping to the kids. But they came up with something completely different, flying or something. The kids took the session in a different direction, and we had to react and adapt to that.

Julia: And it's essential when that happens that we've studied different teaching methods. Dalcroze, Kodály etc.

Pete: I played the kids a short improvisation and then Julia conducted, to show that movement could be related to sound, and then we got them to do it. They started off slightly reticently, but soon we got them all coming up, running around the room.

Julia: They realised that they had real ownership of the sound that Pete was producing. They loved that exercise! John: That really goes to the heart of a lot of what we're doing. If you can find ways for people to explore music by creating something themselves, then they'll want to start to feel involved.

Pete: If you look at music in most other cultures, movement is inherent within it. African cultures where history is transcribed through dance, or samba in Brazil - the music is nothing without dance and the dance is nothing without the music. Western classical music and jazz have lost a lot of that. We still play dances, but no-one actually dances to them! By making that connection again, you're reminded of the beauty and virtuosity of music.

Julia: It's good to be reminded what it feels like never having played an instrument. This course lets you take a few steps back. OK, it's clichéd and a bit cheesy to say that we're giving something back to society, but I think that we are doing something positive.

Pete: It's really important for people to feel involved with what they hear. The rich world of live music is so different to mp3s and so on.

Julia: I don't necessarily think that it's important to change everything that we do as 'serious' musicians. But if we can somehow persuade people in a community centre in Tower Hamlets that they have just as much right to go to a formal concert as anyone else, then possibly they won't be put off before they try it.

Pete: Definitely I'll continue this sort of work. I really don't care how people get involved, whether it's in a concert hall or a school - for me, what's important is that people hear the music. And it's easy to overlook the benefit to the musicians in all of this. I think that school-kids are your best critics. If it's not interesting, they'll tell you! It's a really fertile place to work on your craft.

Julia: I'm really looking forward to the end-of-year workshop, when I'll lead about 15 nine-year-old children in the gallery at the Academy. Now that I've been led through a workshop by experienced practitioners, I want to see what I can do.

Pete: After being taught by amazing teachers, deciding what to do is really just theft from them!

Julia: We've seen already that sometimes an activity will work and other times it won't but then it's how you respond to that and what you can make of it…

John: And the ability to evaluate is vital to this course. It's OK for something not to work, as long as you can reflect on why it hasn't and learn from that. We want to prepare students for the reality of being a professional musician. So-called 'animateur' skills are in high demand throughout the profession and hopefully these fourth-years will be in a position to take real advantage of that next year. But I think what Julia and Pete have talked about also highlights the much bigger reason for working in community settings - that taking your repertoire, virtuosity and musicianship into unusual places and sharing your skills with people that don't necessarily come to concerts or even have an awareness of the Western classical tradition can be really inspiring and remind you why you wanted to be a musician in the first place.