Music Man Project Hits £150,000: Broadway Date 7 October

The Music Man Project, the Leigh-on-Sea music charity for people with learning disabilities, has reached the £150,000 target it set to take its musicians to New York this autumn. The charity’s GoFundMe page now shows £150,109 raised from 171 donations against a £150,000 goal (GoFundMe: Help us reach Broadway), and founder David Stanley wrote on 9 August that the total had been reached “last week” through “concerts, quiz nights, abseils, quilt-making and countless other fundraising activities” alongside donations from individuals, community groups and businesses (The Music Man blog, 9 August 2026).

The money pays for the trip the campaign was built around: 30 musicians with learning disabilities, in a travelling party of more than 60, performing in New York in October 2026, with a main concert, an off-Broadway theatre performance and workshops for local schools and charities (GoFundMe campaign page).

The date and the venue

The main concert is booked. “Music Is Magic On Broadway: The Story of the Music Man Project” is listed at The Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street (between Sixth Avenue and Broadway) on Wednesday 7 October 2026 at 7.30pm, with tickets through the venue’s box office and Ticketmaster. The listing bills the Music Man Project’s “Global Ambassadors from the UK” in their Broadway debut, “written and produced by David Stanley BEM in memory of The Music Man Project’s late President Sir David Amess” (The Town Hall event listing). The charity’s own site carries the same date and venue and says the Global Ambassadors will be supported by a stage band and choir (The Music Man Project).

Why Broadway, and why Sir David

The Southend West MP was the charity’s president. In the charity’s own account, at its Royal Albert Hall debut in 2019 he announced that the Music Man Project would one day perform on Broadway; after his murder in October 2021, the charity made that promise the point of the campaign, writing on the fundraising page: “I’m determined to make this his legacy, to show that good will overcome evil” (GoFundMe campaign page).

The charity itself is a Leigh institution. Registered charity 1188041, based at 209 Western Road, Leigh-on-Sea, it grew out of music workshops David Stanley began after befriending a young man with Down’s syndrome in 1999; its own history records that he promised the first participants they would one day play the Royal Albert Hall, “a joke that became a dream, that became an ambition”. Its patron is the singer Michael Ball, who appeared with the charity at the campaign’s launch at Coutts Bank, and Mr Stanley holds the BEM and serves as the UK Disability and Access Ambassador for Arts and Culture (The Music Man Project, The Music Man blog).

What it means for you

• The appeal is still open. Reaching the target does not close the page; the charity says any further support goes towards the trip’s costs, and it also takes enquiries by email at davidstanley@themusicmanproject.com (The Music Man Project).
• If you will be in New York: the 7 October concert is a public, ticketed event at The Town Hall; the box office is open Monday to Saturday, noon to 6pm, on (212) 997-6661 (The Town Hall).
• If you want to see the group at home first: the charity’s calendar of local performances and workshops is on its website; its base is on Western Road in Leigh, a few minutes from Leigh-on-Sea station on our Southend to London trains route.

We will report the New York concert once the charity publishes its own account of it.

Sources

• GoFundMe: Help us reach Broadway in memory of the late Sir David Amess (total, donation count and campaign text as of 17 August 2026)
• The Music Man blog, David Stanley, 9 August 2026: From Southend-on-Sea to Broadway
• The Music Man Project website
• The Town Hall, New York: Music Is Magic On Broadway, 7 October 2026