Produced in collaboration between Dr Jennifer MacRitchie, AgeUK Sheffield, and the Young-Onset Hub, "Living with Young-Onset Dementia: Our Music, Our Voice" seeks to challenge the stereotypes often associated with music and people living with dementia. It also explores new tools and technologies to support interacting with music, and celebrates the diverse ways the dementia community enjoys and engages with music.
The film is made by real voices of people living with young-onset dementia, centering their diverse experiences and interactions with music. It premiered on 24th May 2025 at Hillsborough Pavillion, along with a discussion panel featuring many of the people living with dementia featured in the film.
The film represents the latest achievement in Dr MacRitchie's ongoing research concerning the diverse relationships between music and people living with dementia. Through her work supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Dr MacRitchie has been engaging with individuals living with dementia to better understand their musical experiences and needs. She identified a gap in both research and representation regarding the diverse ways people with dementia connect with music.
As part of the project (funded by the Participatory Research Network at the University of Sheffield), she has led interactive workshops where participants explore their relationship with music and experiment with innovative technologies designed to personalise and enrich their musical experiences. One such activity worked with cutting edge tools developed by collaborators at Lancaster University so participants could manipulate artificial intelligence images to imagine and create new musical instruments tailored to individual preferences and abilities.
This research is one of the strands of the innovative research centre, Muses, Mind, Machine.