Context is everything, for everyone. So say the scientists. Classical music, for example, can greatly shape cognitive development in infants. But we can’t all be reared beneath Baby Einstein mobiles, swaddled in fair trade cotton. Enhanced personal development via music, however, needn’t cease at infancy or be exclusive to a slivered population of the planet.

One organization substantiating aural equality for all is Youth Music, the UK’s biggest children’s music charity, which has given over 2 million young people free access to music-making projects and activities. The charity has created 21 Youth Music Action Zones–workshops, performances, rehearsals, and mentoring– throughout the UK to foster opportunities for disadvantaged youth.

For next month’s Youth Music Week, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, Youth Music is showcasing a book they’re soon to release, Destroy / Rankin, a collaborative photography project engined by the iconic fashion and portrait photographer, filmmaker, and publisher Rankin (John Rankin Waddell), who founded English lifestyle magazine Dazed and Confused with Jefferson Hack nearly twenty years ago, and has gone on to photograph a multitude of public influences, including Kate Moss, Tony Blair, Queen Elizabeth II, and Naomi Campbell.

For Destroy / Rankin, over 70 global musicians–including U2, Beck, Jarvis Cocker, The Gossip, Michael Stipe, Kylie Minogue, Goldfrapp, Marianne Faithful, and many others–were asked to “destroy” a selection of Rankin’s iconic musician portraits. The results see the works reincarnated into collage, paintings, and drawings. Many of the musicians additionally collaborated with visual artists, including Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon, and Mat Collishaw, to re-work the material.

Five essays exploring the relationship of art and music can be found in the book, and include commentary from Mike Figgis, Beth Ditto, Miranda Sawyer, and Rankin himself. The launch will take place at reputable London auction house Phillips de Pury and Company from November 9–14.

The book’s unique pooling substantiates the increasingly important task of meshing our creative communities with social action organizations at the ground level. The value of this creative matriculation for empowerment is echoed in the Youth Music mission statement: “Being involved in a music project where youth are supported and encouraged, their creativity welcomed and nurtured, allows young people with difficult lives to begin to find their way, take charge of their lives and take positive steps for the future.”

Furthermore, as youth activist and educator Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor who recently took helm of the LA Philharmonic, speaking on the value of music education, told CBC yesterday, “We are building better citizens with music. This is the real reason for the system. Music, yes, but to see your life in a different way.”

The ’system’ he refers to is Venezuela’s National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras, a 35-year-old program that’s put nearly 400,000 young people through its training program.

Youth Music is an example of Venezuela’s System’s global ripple effect, proving that deep within the lining of the vast global economic and political spectrum is that which can universally enable, that which can, and should be, heard by all.

Destroy / Rankin sees European release Nov 1st, and international release Dec 1st.