TEDx LCCM

TEDx LCCM presents: Beyond Survival

In the creative industries, we often speak the language of hustle, resilience, and making it through. But what if survival isn’t the goal? What if music, and creativity more broadly, is not a “nice-to-have,” but essential infrastructure for human flourishing?

Beyond Survival is a human, philosophical, and quietly radical exploration of music as something deeper than entertainment — as social architecture, as education, as psychology, as community.

Across the evening, we’ll hear from leading artists and academics examining ideas including:

• Why We Don’t Need Music (And Why We’re Wrong) - reframing music as fundamental to human development and collective wellbeing.
• Feedback as Community Builder - how learning through feedback can move us from isolated survival to connected growth.
• Music as Social Architecture - music as infrastructure for belonging, identity, and cultural memory.
• Songwriting Without Theory - trusting embodied knowledge over rigid systems and survival metrics.

This is a space to think differently about the creative industries as vital ecosystems to nurture.

Meet the Speakers

Annatoria
An award-winning artist and one of the UK’s most compelling contemporary voices, Annatoria brings lived experience from the frontlines of the music industry - offering perspective on creativity, resilience, and what it truly means to move beyond survival.

LCCM Academic Panel: Dan Green, Xiao Xiao, Chris Barnett & Lisbee Stainton
Representing LCCM’s academic community, this collective of educators and practitioners brings insight from across music education, creative practice, songwriting, and critical reflection. Together, they explore how music functions not just as art or industry, but as pedagogy, psychology, and social infrastructure.

Whether you are an artist, educator, student, or cultural thinker, Beyond Survival invites you to reconsider music not as background noise to life, but as one of its essential foundations.