Marianna Hay MBE

Co-Director, Take Note

Marianna’s career has focused on using music for social change, first as a music teacher with the Teach First programme and then as the Founder and Artistic Director of Orchestras for All (OFA).

After reading music at Oxford University, Marianna joined Teach First and taught music at Highbury Grove School in Islington in 2007, subsequently becoming the school's Director of Music, and leading its first in-school music academy.   

In 2011, inspired by the pupils she had been teaching in school, Marianna founded the charity Orchestras for All in the belief that all young people should be able to access the life-changing experience of ensemble music-making whatever their circumstances. From its beginnings, working in partnership with others has been crucial to OFA’s success and its ability to present high quality, ambitious artistic activity and deliver collective impact for young people.

In addition to her work with OFA, Marianna has worked as a freelance consultant on a number of initiatives across the arts, social change and education sector. Most recently, she is working with the Hilti Foundation to help establish their new Academy for Impact through Music, an exciting initiative that connects and trains teaching artists from music and social change projects around the world.  In 2017-2018, Marianna spent a year as a Fellow on the Clore Leadership Programme, funded by Arts Council England. In 2020, Marianna was awarded an MBE for services to music education for founding and leading Orchestras for All.

Contact Marianna at marianna@wetakenote.org

Emily Webb

Co-Director, Take Note (on maternity leave)

Emily’s career has focused on using creative writing for social change, first as Head of Programme and Interim Executive Director of national charity First Story. There, she led a period of growth to double its reach to over 2,000 young people from low-income backgrounds, developing over 20 regional partnerships across the country, and during that time led the charity to found the UK’s first ever National Writing Day reaching 85,000 young people nationally. 

Emily led Ministry of Stories through a period of transition as their Executive Director in 2018-19 and now convenes the advocacy think tank for the sector, comprising 14 creative writing education organisations. 

Emily is currently Producer at international theatre charity Good Chance. She ran temporary ‘Theatres of Hope’ in Good Chance’s geodesic Dome in refugee centres around Paris throughout 2018 and founded and runs Good Chance’s poetry collective Change the Word with refugees, asylum seekers and locals. She produced stages of the groundbreaking travelling festival of welcome The Walk with Little Amal, the 3.5m high puppet of a young refugee walking from the border of Syria to the UK with over 250 partners across Europe.

Stuart Burns

Take Note Associate

An experienced arts and charity sector manager, Stuart began his career in the Civil Service before spending five years with national music education charity Orchestras for All, leading the organisation as Executive Director for two years. Stuart is now Head of Artistic Planning with Scottish Ensemble, a pioneering collective of string musicians based in Glasgow, focusing on its programme of innovative cross artform collaboration projects. Alongside his work with Take Note on The Collaboration Guidebook, he has undertaken a range of consultancy work for arts and charity organisations, including refugee arts charity Play for Progress and the National Youth Jazz Collective.

Contact Stuart at stuart@wetakenote.org