How Music Creates Connection: Music Declares Emergency for Loneliness Awareness Week 2026

Guest blog post by Music Declares Emergency.

This June, we’re taking part in Loneliness Awareness Week.

From 15 to 21 June 2026, we’ll be joining the global campaign led by Marmalade Trust. As part of our June Climate Action Challenge, we want to open up a conversation about loneliness, connection, and the role music can play in bringing people together.

At Music Declares Emergency, our mission is to bring the music community together to demand urgent action on the climate and ecological crisis, while helping build a music industry and culture that is fairer, greener and more connected. Through the NO MUSIC ON A DEAD PLANET Movement, we work with music fans to turn care, creativity and collective energy into action.

For us, this challenge is part of that bigger picture. Climate action is not just about systems change, it is also about people feeling connected, supported and able to imagine a better future together. Strong communities make collective action possible. And music, at its best, can help create exactly that: spaces where people feel seen, connected and part of something bigger than themselves.

Loneliness is something most of us will experience at some point, and for a lot of young people it’s becoming an increasingly familiar feeling. At the same time, music can offer something powerful: a way in. A way into friendship, community, shared experience, and feeling part of something bigger than yourself.

That’s something I know personally. I met many of my closest friends at gigs in grassroots venues across London after dropping out of sixth form due to bullying. It often started with something quite small but brave, reaching out to someone you’d met the night before to ask if they fancied going to see another band tonight.

There was real vulnerability in that, but also such a reward: the feeling on the night bus home after a gig, when a new friendship had clicked into place. For my younger self, who often felt isolated and unsure where she fitted in, those moments of connection meant so much. They gave me a real sense of belonging, community and possibility.

This year’s theme of Loneliness Awareness Week is Giving Loneliness a Voice, and that feels especially meaningful to us at Music Declares Emergency. We know loneliness can be hard to talk about, and easy to hide. But when we create space for honest conversations, it becomes easier for people to feel seen, understood and less alone.

When vulnerability is met with care and empathy, it can help build stronger, more connected communities. It allows people to recognise those feelings in themselves and in others, and creates more understanding within local music communities and beyond.

Part of this is about seeing loneliness for what it is: a human feeling, not something to be ashamed of. When we respond to it with openness rather than judgement, we make connection more possible.

For us, this is also about recognising that connection matters. Strong communities help people feel more grounded, more supported and more able to take action. Through music, we can build those connections, whether that’s through live events, local scenes, shared playlists, community spaces or simply showing up for one another.

As part of June’s challenge, we’ll be encouraging our community to take one simple action to build connection through music. That could mean going to a gig with someone, inviting a friend to a local event, reaching out to someone over a shared love of music, or supporting spaces and initiatives that make music and community more accessible to more people.

We’ll also be using the month to talk about the barriers that can stop people from feeling part of live music and community, from cost, to access needs, to wider questions of inclusion, and to spotlight the people and organisations working to improve this.

We really believe that we’re stronger together. If music can help people feel less isolated, more connected and more hopeful, that matters, not just on a personal level, but collectively too.

This June, we’d love you to take part in whatever way feels right for you. Start a conversation. Invite someone along. Share something that helps you feel connected. However small it seems, it matters.

You can join our Movement of music fans taking a stand for the planet at NOMUSICONADEADPLANET.ORG and follow us at @musicdeclares to stay updated about our work.