Inclusion is a shared value across special music education, music therapy, and critical disability studies, but various approaches to realise this exist at both field and practitioner level (Darrow & Tsiris, 2013). Pedagogical approaches to music participation for disabled young people are often conceptualised through the lens of additionality and difference, as opposed to being grounded in a framework that presupposes the participation of all learners from the outset (Wilson et al., 2020). However, improvisation may function both as a creative process that supports agency and identity-making for all (MacDonald & Wilson, 2020), as well as providing a pedagogical strategy that enables facilitators to be adaptive and responsive (Holdus, 2019). Interdependence, drawn from Critical Disability Studies (Kafer, 2013; Goodley, 2014), recognises that access and participation is relational and support is mutual. Inclusion, then, is not a fixed endpoint but an emergent practice (Henley & Higgins, 2020).This presentation will address the following research questions:Can interdependence provide a lens to understand inclusion in musical contexts? And if so, how?How may improvisation function as a tool for inclusion?To investigate these research questions, a 9-month research project with a charity, Limelight Music (LM) was undertaken. Disabled and non-disabled musicians co-facilitated creative music workshops (e.g., graphic scores, songwriting) with disabled young people (aged 12-15) attending a school for young people with severe and complex additional needs. Ethnographic research methods such as workshop observations were supplemented with focus groups and interviews undertaken with staff, parents and young people. Young people described their experiences through themes of “expressing yourself” and “becoming a band,” highlighting dual processes of individual expression and a growing collective identity together with facilitators. Facilitators, meanwhile, articulated improvisation as integral to their pedagogy, enacted through musical attunement, non-verbal communication and humour.Taken together, interdependence, and inclusion suggests a reconfiguration of how participatory music with disabled young people might be understood. Interdependence highlights the mutual and relational nature of participation where inclusion emerges not as a final destination, but as an ongoing, negotiated practice. Improvisation can providing creative agency for participants across disciplines and modes of communication, thus serving as an important tool for inclusion. The work of LM demonstrates how these dimensions converge, where disabled young people and facilitators can co-construct meaningful musical experiences. This highlights that the importance to continually reimagine what music-making can offer inclusion when everyone’s contribution has the potential power to shape the collective whole.