Music Newsletter May 2017
Music Newsletter
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Contents Introduction
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Interview with Dr Caroline Bithell
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Student Spotlights
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Events: Estival and Musica Festival
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Staff News
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Alumni Perspectives
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Introduction Congratulations on being offered a place on one of our undergraduate courses in Music at the University of Manchester. In the pages that follow, I share with you some of the exciting news from the Music Department, featuring interviews with key people, including current students and alumni. This should offer you a picture of student life at the University of Manchester as we approach the end of the current academic year. Highlights include an interview with the incoming Head of Music, Dr Caroline Bithell, wherein she discusses her recent British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Research Award as well as her vision for the department in the coming years. I have also included student spotlights on our undergraduates on the MusB, BA and JointCourse programmes, and a current doctoral candidate. There’s also exciting news from one of our alumni, Tom Coult, whose new composition will open this year’s BBC Proms! The number of events taking place in the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama is staggering, and the newsletter highlights just two: Estival (a week-long festival of music making) and Musica (a week-long event celebrating the contribution made by women to music composition, scholarship, conducting and performance). Also featured here is a selection of recent news stories from the academics working within Music highlighting performance, composition, and musicological research. As a student at Manchester, you will become part of this vibrant and inclusive scholarly community in one of the highest-ranked Music departments in the UK. What’s more, you will experience the best of both worlds: every student studying Music at the University of Manchester has all the advantages of a first-class, researchled University mingled with conservatoire-level tuition and performance culture. Our state-of the-art facilities and expert tuition supported by an enormous range of concerts by both professionals and students make Music at Manchester an exciting place to study. We have an outstanding record for producing top-level professionals in a wide range of fields, as well as a proud tradition of nurturing some of the country’s leading musical minds. We very much hope to have the pleasure of welcoming you to Manchester in September. In the meantime, we extend our very best wishes to you for success in your studies and summer examinations. Warm regards,
Dr Anne M. Hyland | Admissions Tutor for Music | anne.hyland@manchester.ac.uk
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Interview with Dr Caroline Bithell, incoming Head of Music What is your vision for Music as incoming Head of Subject? I’m committed to our ethos of excellence in all that we do – enabling our students to pursue their passions and hone their existing strengths, but also giving them the tools they need to explore new directions and discover the talents they never knew they had. Being at university is not only about acquiring knowledge, skills and top grades though. It’s also about learning how to live your life, to find your way in the world and make your own unique contribution. Music, for me, is at heart of what makes a healthy society tick: music as art and entertainment but also as social interaction and crosscultural communication. Manchester as a modern, multicultural city is bursting at the seams with music and, at the university, our School alone has seventeen different subject areas. I’m keen to develop more interdisciplinary, collaborative events involving staff and students from Drama and Anthropology, for example, as well as professional practitioners from outside the university. What makes studying Music at the University of Manchester special? We have an extraordinarily dynamic, inspiring and supportive community here in Music and we’re lucky to have such a fantastic home in the Martin Harris Centre and NOVARS building. The place is always buzzing – with top-rate music-making, animated discussion, new ideas being put into action. The RNCM, the Halle, BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata and Opera North are more or less on our doorstep. Being based in the city that has the largest number of live music events per capita in the whole of the UK means that, as well as being able to attend performances by the very best artists from all over the world, our students have the opportunity to work closely with a huge range of professional musicians and to take their own music out to some of the more unusual performance spaces the city has to offer – the newly restored Victoria Baths, for example! It’s a privilege to teach students who are also at the top of their game academically. World-class researchers and world-class students is quite a heady mix. And when I see the things some of our former students go on to do – like composer Tom Coult opening the First Night of the 2017 BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall – I know we must be getting something right.
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How does your research inform your teaching at Manchester? I’ve written books and articles about singing and choirs, Corsican and Georgian music, music revivals, music and gender, music and political activism, cultural policy and more. My research feeds into my teaching through case studies (illustrated with my own recordings, video footage and interview material) and discussions of theory and method (again, with stories drawn from my own experience). It helps to bring things to life when you can say: this happened just last year and I was there! My international circle of friends and colleagues – the people I meet at conferences and collaborate with on research projects – are also the authors of many of the books on my reading lists and this helps us all to feel part of an international scholarly community. Tell us about your most recent research award. I was awarded a research grant from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust for my project ‘Safeguarding and Transmission of Musical Heritage in Contemporary Georgia (Caucasus)’. The award coincided with a half-year sabbatical and allowed me to spend six months carrying out fieldwork in Georgia, which is where you’re most likely to find me when I’m not in Manchester. My time there included attending festivals and singing camps up in the mountains as well as working on a day-to-day basis with traditional music ensembles and colleagues at the State Conservatoire and State Folklore Centre in the capital, Tbilisi. I’m now working my way though hundreds of hours of recorded interviews and film footage, alongside writing journal articles and giving guest lectures and conference papers based on this research. Over the past couple of years my work has also taken me to Spain, Poland, Kazakhstan and Cuba so there really is never a dull moment.
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Student Spotlights Max Thomas (Second year, Music with Spanish BA) What are you working on right now? As part of the Music side of my degree this semester, I’ve been studying Vocal Composition and Sound and Digital Entertainment Technologies, which involves building a sonic centric game. Beyond Music, I’m also doing a Flexible Honours minor in Spanish so have also been improving my language skills whilst exploring some modern Hispanic films and literature. Outside of my degree, I’m currently writing a short musical with a friend to be performed in the MUMS Estival student festival, as well as sorting an 8-week trip to Spain this summer which is part the language section of my degree. What is the most exciting and nerve-racking thing about this final part of the year? For me the most nerve-racking thing has been realising I’m already nearly in my final year of university and having to start thinking about life after my degree; time seems to pass incredibly quickly at Manchester. I’m equally excited and nervous about working on a dissertation next year, but have no idea what I want to do it on as of yet! What are your plans for next year? Will you be busy beyond the course? Have you finalised your course-unit choices? Thankfully, I’ve finalised my choices already and am doing a Composition Portfolio, a Dissertation, studying Modern Spanish Music, as well as continuing with Spanish Language. I should then leave University with a 'Music with Spanish' BA rather than a MusB. Outside the course I’m also going to be publicity manager for Ad Solem, which is the University’s top chamber choir, whilst trying to set up an alumni network for the University of Manchester Chorus.
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What do you hope to gain in your final year? And what have you gained so far from your time at Manchester? Being surrounded by an incredibly talented and intelligent set of staff and course-mates means you gain a huge amount of knowledge as well as learning to think critically and independently, something I look forward to exploring in my dissertation. However, at Manchester there’s so much to be gained beyond the course whether it is learning job specific skills by taking up a position within a society, more general life skills whilst learning to live independently, or gaining some lifelong friends during your time at University. Tell us about your role as President of Chorus. University of Manchester Chorus was founded in 1936 so the role of President is a relatively daunting mantle to pick up. The choir has around 150 members of students and non-students, and puts on two large concerts a year. My role as president has been to manage the committee and make sure all the rehearsals and concerts go ahead. Whilst being a relatively pressured role, it is an incredibly rewarding job as you are able to put on stunning concerts whilst working with professional conductors and singers, as well as my friends that are also on the committee. Next year we should be performing Britten’s ‘Saint Nicolas’ and Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’, so I’d recommend everyone sign up if you don’t want to miss out on these!
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Sarah Keirle (Third year, MusB, violist, singer, electroacoustic composer) What are you working on right now? I'm currently putting the final details on the audiocentric game I created for the Sound and Digital Entertainment Technologies module. This has been a challenging module due to the new and constantly evolving nature of the software, but it's been great fun to design a video game from scratch! I'm also preparing for my final recital on viola. The third-year recital period is a great opportunity to hear friends play a wide variety of repertoire and also to show what you've been working on all year. What is the most exciting and nerve-racking thing about this final part of the year? The most exciting part is definitely the performances. As well as the final recitals, we have Estival week, which is a week of concerts including big band, symphony orchestra, choirs and even a grade-one orchestra. The nerve-wracking part is probably how quickly the three years have flown by and the inevitable goodbyes we'll have to say to all the people leaving Manchester! What are your plans for the future? Have you anything lined up for the next year or more? I am hoping to take the Composition Masters here at Manchester, focusing on electroacoustic and interactive composition – the electroacoustic facilities at the University are absolutely brilliant and have definitely been a highlight of my undergraduate degree. I am also taking a part-time course at SSR (School of Sound Recording) on Sound for Film, Games and TV. The combined skill sets from these two courses will hopefully prepare me for the sound design / game-audio industry.
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How has your degree and your time at the University of Manchester helped you towards these next steps? As well as the electroacoustic and sound design modules tailored to my current ambitions, the degree has taught me valuable self-motivation and communication skills. Being able to play and listen to undergraduate, postgraduate, and lecturer compositions has taught me a lot about where I want to take my own compositional style. The music society's many ensembles have also been helpful in teaching me effective time-management! What discoveries have you made during your time here? The first thing I learnt was that entering an incredibly competitive industry doesn't mean you can't support and encourage each other. You can be ambitious without being aggressive! I have also discovered that focusing solely on one aspect isn't always the best way to develop as a person and musician. The degree structure has allowed me to follow both electroacoustic and performance strands in great detail, which has led to a more varied and more enjoyable three years.
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William Padfield (Third year, MusB ‘Joint Course’ with RNCM, conductor, horn player) What are you working on right now? I am currently working towards a performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony with the RNCM Symphony orchestra conducted by Jac Van Steen. It is one of my favourite pieces, so it is a privilege to perform it while still a student. At the same time, I am preparing to play in a concert with the Halle orchestra at The Sage Gateshead, Newcastle. This is the final part of a college professional experience scheme, which you can audition for from third year. If it goes well, you can be added to the extras list, so it is a fantastic opportunity. Alongside all this, I am starting my final pieces of university coursework, preparing for my final exams and of course practicing for my final college recital – so there is plenty to keep myself busy! What is the most exciting and nerve-racking thing about this final part of the year? The most nerve-racking thing is the feeling of time having gone (and going) so quickly. Where the last three years have gone is a mystery to me. There is also the awareness of incoming change, which creates both excitement and anxiety. On the one hand, there are plenty of opportunities – I am already looking forward to lots of playing and conducting at the end of term – but it is also a daunting time. What are your plans for the fourth year at the college? I plan to practise as much as I can and spend more time listening to music. I also hope to be able to do more freelancing with the Halle and other professional orchestras, and will audition for as many opportunities as I can. It is also a priority for me to keep up my conducting, so I aim to have a small ensemble set up comprised of college students, which will focus mainly on twentieth-century works. From the start of summer, I will be applying for conducting Master’s programmes and beginning preparation for these. Right now I am considering applying to a mixture of music colleges, including some abroad.
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What is it like juggling the two courses at the university and the college? Initially, I found it quite hard to keep up, especially in first year, but with the help of my horn teacher, I got round to buying a diary and started getting into the habit of filling in everything months in advance. This makes life much easier: you can identify clashes between the two institutions long before they occur, and as long as you communicate with your lecturers, teachers or concert managers, they will work with you to find a solution. The fact that the course makes me “busy” is part of why I love it so much! Where else could you be playing in a masterclass with Fergus McWilliam – third horn of the Berlin Philharmonic – one day, conduct a university symphony rehearsal the next, then have the opportunity to meet Sir Mark Elder the day after, whilst in between attending lectures from the finest experts in the field? For me, it is the variety that makes the course so unique. Another highlight is that through this course I am able to be both a principle-study horn player and conductor: I was able to choose to conduct for my final recital at university, meaning I can focus my college recital on the horn. How have your university studies informed your development as a performer? I strongly believe that a solid, academic foundation in Music is vital for a convincing performance – whether as a conductor or a horn player. Courses such as the third-year Analysis module go far beyond the level taught at music college, and have enabled me to totally rethink the way I approach a piece of music. The Aesthetics module, too, opens your mind up to the philosophical nature of music and considers its wider place within the arts; practically, this means that when I am conducting a Haydn symphony, or playing horn in a Strauss tone poem, I am aware that there is a bigger picture to what I am doing which goes beyond just the dots on the page.
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Emma Wilde (doctoral candidate in composition under the supervision of Professor Camden Reeves) Emma has recently been selected as one of the Next Wave 2 Composers – a unique programme designed to promote and support composers in higher education. We caught up with her to ask her some questions about the award. What made you apply to Next Wave? I wanted to apply for Next Wave as it offers a great selection of development opportunities for a composer. It offers two extended workshops in which you are able to experiment with your ideas and collaborate with a group of performers from Royal Northern Sinfonia and a solo artist; in my case I have been partnered with Luke Carver Goss, an accordionist. This will allow for the opportunity to really refine compositional ideas. Also the finished work will be recorded and released on NMC recordings on international download which will be a great opportunity to publicise and disseminate my work to a wider audience. Tell us about your doctoral work at the University of Manchester. My PhD in composition has focussed on a number of research areas including the use of Greek tragedy as a structural device and techniques for musical stratification, the exploration of a simplified harmonic language using limited amounts of pitches and also exploring how techniques in medieval and renaissance music can be used in contemporary composition. What excited you most about this project? I am most excited about getting to know the performers and I am interested to see how they will respond to my ideas in the workshops through the collaborative aspect of the project. I am also excited to get to know the other composers who are taking part in the programme as it is always inspiring to meet other composers and to have the opportunity to share and discuss ideas.
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What have you gained so far from your time at Manchester? So far during my time in Manchester, I have gained a great amount of experience of working with performers to realise performances of my pieces. I believe that this is one of the best aspects of the composition courses at the University of Manchester as there are opportunities to have all your compositions performed by both student and professional ensembles. This is invaluable. I have also benefitted from the music communities in the city: there is a wealth of contemporary ensembles based in Manchester such as Psappha, Distractfold and Trio Atem, and there are plenty of concerts to attend.
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Events: Estival Matt Mitchell (MusB) is the outgoing President of Manchester University Music Society (MUMS). His final act as President will be to sign off with Estival. But, what is it? Matt, what is Estival? Estival is the largest student-run music festival in the UK. The event was established several years ago and is now an annual tradition. Over 5 days, MUMS celebrates a fantastic year of music-making with a showcase of all our ensembles’ talents and hard work. Alongside the more formal concerts including the Symphony, Chamber, Wind, and String Orchestras, we run the Estival Hub; we turn a seminar room into an informal performance space where anyone can sign up to play or sing. Highlights in the past have included ‘Cor Blimey’ (a quintet of Cor Anglais), a jazz jam, and speed-composing. Complete with a bar, MUMS members get the chance to relax in the Hub and enjoy something different after their exams and deadlines. What have you got planned this year? We have got a huge range of things planned for Estival this year. Based on the success of last year’s collaboration between MUMS and the University of Manchester Drama Society, we are once again commissioning several new shows for a cross-disciplinary mash-up. On top of that, the MUMS Outreach team has organised a ‘relaxed performance’ for Estival, where the local community will be invited to a free lunchtime concert with will be open to all, especially those with young children and those living with dementia. A highlight of Estival is always the ‘Grade1athon Orchestra’ where, fresh from their Grade 1 exams, MUMS members grace our ears with some classic tunes in an attempt to prove their mastery of a new instrument. The Grade1athon takes place each year and sees many of our students leaning a new instrument while raising money for Oxfam. As a gesture of gratitude and interest, Oxfam are requesting to live-stream our concert this year! We round off Estival this year with our Symphony Orchestra who will play Rimsky-Korsakov’s stunning symphonic suite, Scheherazade, as well as other specially chosen works conducted by our final-year student conductors.
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Events: Musica 2017
Abi Kitching (MusB) was the mastermind behind the University’s first Musica Festival; we asked her to share her thoughts and reflections on it. This was the inaugural year for Musica, a student-run festival celebrating all aspects of female music making at the University of Manchester. During the week of International Women’s Day, Musica hosted a number of events exploring female conducting, performing, composing, and discussion of the role of women in music scholarship. To kick-start the week, Musica collaborated with Collective31 – a local arts collective – to hold a composition workshop in which RNCM-based composer, singer, and scholar, Nina Whiteman workshopped student compositions shortlisted from a successful all-female call for scores. The second event was a conducting workshop led by world-renowned conductor and the first women to conduct the BBC Proms, Odaline de la Martinez. She was joined by University of Manchester alumna and conductor, Elspeth Slorach, who led two preliminary workshops. In all, thirteen women tried their hand at conducting (many for the first time) in a master class with mixed choir. The workshops encouraged many women to pursue conducting, something which is often considered a male-dominant sphere, and Odaline remarked that it was a ‘pleasure to be able to come and work with such talented and positive musicians’. On international Women’s Day (8th of March), Music hosted a MUMS lunchtime concert boasting an all-female programme from Fanny Mendelssohn to arrangements of Beyonce performed by an all-female Big Band.
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Lunchtime concert The week reached its pinnacle with a symposium on the role of women in music. Participants included the leading composer, Judith Bingham, Professor Jeanice Brooks (University of Southampton), Kate Lowes (Brighter Sounds), Dr Jenna Ashton (the Digital Women’s Archive North), and female academics from the University of Manchester: Prof. Rebecca Herissone and Drs Caroline Bithell, Jennifer Sheppard and Anne Hyland. Important issues were raised by this discussion, such as the ways in which gender has impacted their various fields, as well as the dearth of female composers on university curricula. The afternoon was thought-provoking, entertaining and inspirational; it was a real pleasure to have he opportunity to explore these issues in such an open way.
Throughout the week, Musica also hosted a number of pop-up events in the Music Department; everything from traditional folk music, to string duets, jazz, and solo snare drum was showcased. We raised much-needed funds for Manchester Rape Crisis, and hope very much to continue the success of this event in the coming years.
Symposium on Women in Music
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Staff News Ricardo Climent's Interactive music composition "s.laag" wins ICMA Music Award 2016 in Europe
Professor Ricardo Climent, director of the NOVARS Research Centre
Professor Ricardo Climent was awarded the prestigious 2016 ICMA – International Computer Music Association – European Regional Award for his composition s.laag. Especially written for Dutch bass clarinettist Marij Van Gorkom, the work is an interactive composition using game-audio technology, immersing the audience into a virtual replica of the Expo 58's world's fair in Brussels. In the piece, iconic architecture such as the Philips pavilion and Atomium become musical instruments interacting with the performer, who plays in duo with her virtual self (a 3D scanned body avatar). When did you write this piece and what has been its impact?
I composed s.laag. during my research sabbatical in 2016. It has been performed and discussed not only in The Netherlands, but also in other key academic fora and conferences such as: xCOAx Conference in Bergamo (Italy), Live Interfaces Conference in Brighton, Mantis Festival (Manchester), Leicester's Music, Technology & Innovation Research Centre at deMontfort University and in the Ludo Conference 2017, Bath Spa University, the latter, a branch of musicology specialised in game theory. It is wonderful to watch it spread far and wide. In what sense is this work a model for collaboration? With my work, I advocate for a new understanding of the role of the composer, who now works with specialised teams and is strongly influenced by the potential of Arts and Science synergies. As a result, I have found novel ways to teach composition, communicate with broader audiences, and push forward the language and grammar of interdisciplinary thinking in the field of interactive media. Behind s.laag there is more than a performer and a composer: there is also a team of architects and 3D modelers (Manusamo&Bzika), a collaboration with the Dr Simeon Gill director of the 3D-scanner at the School of Materials, The University of Manchester, and a full Dutch-UK research network project http://dutch-uk.network, supported by the Research Network Fund, SALC, The University of Manchester, UK. How do projects like this one inform your teaching at Manchester? Manchester University's pioneering research in game-audio with a musical focus is bringing a number of benefits to its Music department. For instance, it has filtered down to the undergraduate curriculum, the Masters in Composition and the PhD programme; it offers students new courses which help them to understand the role of sound in a broad range of new media. Students: watch this space!
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Professor Barry Cooper receives Honorary Doctorate in Argentina Professor Barry Cooper
In March 2017, Professor Barry Cooper received an honorary doctorate from the University of Tucuman in Argentina. This was the very first time that the University of Tucuman had awarded an honorary doctorate to a musicologist, so it was a considerable honour. What did you get up to in Argentina? While in Tucuman to receive the award, I also attended the Argentinian premiere of my reconstruction of Beethoven’s unfinished Tenth Symphony. I then travelled to the University of Cordoba, where I gave a number of seminars which discussed aspects of Beethoven’s music, including my edition of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, Beethoven’s composing methods and uses of silence in his compositions, and my approach to reconstructing Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony from the composer’s sketches. What else have you been working on recently? My new book, The Creation of Beethoven’s 35 Piano Sonatas, appeared last month with Routledge as part of the Ashgate Historical Keyboard Series. In 2007, I produced a new edition of all 35 sonatas, including three that are often overlooked, and examined each sonata in turn, addressing questions such as: Why were they written? Why did they turn out as they did? How did they come into being and how did they reach their final form? In this new publication, I draw on the composer’s sketches, autograph scores and early printed editions, as well as contextual material such as correspondence (which is increasingly available), to explore the links between the notes and symbols found in the musical texts of the sonatas, and the environment that brought them about. The result is a biography not of the composer, but of the works themselves.
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Dr Anne M. Hyland awarded British Academy and Leverhulme Trust Research Funding Dr Anne M. Hyland, Lecturer in Music Dr Anne Hyland was recently awarded a British Academy and Leverhulme Trust research grant to undertake the three-year project, ‘Reconstructing the Viennese String Quartet, 1818-1830: Composers, Contexts and Analytical Perspectives’. What is the main aim of your project? The project aims to transform our understanding of the Viennese String Quartet during Beethoven’s and Schubert’s lifetimes. Rather surprisingly, although this period witnessed the genre’s burgeoning (the first professional string quartet was established in 1808), virtually nothing is known about the repertoire performed at the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde outside of the Classical masterworks of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. This project aims to reconstruct this forgotten history because it has the potential to augment or challenge the Beethoven-centric account prominent in the existing literature as well as invite new ways of interpreting the canonical works of the time. What does the project involve and what are the challenges? The work will be carried out in two stages. Stage one involves archival work at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (GdMf) in Vienna to access the Abendunterhaltungen ‘Evening Entertainments’ programmes. These are written in an old calligraphic hand, Fraktur, which means they can be difficult to decipher, but they remain the only records we have of these concerts. The second stage comprises sourcing as much of the music as possible in order to conduct an analysis of each quartet. Here, the challenge is that most of this music is available only in individual parts rather than in score format, so I will need to typeset each work with Sibelius in order to see – and hear – it as a complete work. What are you most excited about in terms of this project? Much of this music hasn’t yet been recorded, so I’m excited about the prospect of working with the resident String Quartet at the University of Manchester, the Quatour Danel, as well as our student quartets, to bring this music to life for the first time for our generation. Moreover, there are many fascinating questions to pursue regarding what this repertoire can tell us about musical form in the nineteenth century, and I’m very excited to get started in earnest.
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Concert Celebrating Philip Grange, Professor of Composition On Friday, 16 December 2016 the Martin Harris Centre held a very special concert celebrating the composer Philip Grange’s 60th year: ‘Professor Philip Grange at Professor Philip Grange 60’. The concert was given by one of the UK’s leading contemporary music ensembles, Gemini, whose members include some of the finest players in their field. The concert featured the premiere of a major new work by Grange entitled, Shifting Thresholds. The work is strongly influenced by structures in Samuel Beckett’s novel Malone Dies. Other works on the programme were also linked to Beckett: music by his close friends, Morton Feldman, and his love of Beethoven’s Ghost Trio.
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Alumni Perspectives
Tom Coult (MusB, 2010) Composer Young composer Tom Coult will have his new work featured at this year’s BBC Proms. Tom, born in London in 1988, has already has his work championed by many of the UK’s major orchestras and ensembles. He graduated from the University of Manchester in 2010 with a first-class honours, and received the University’s Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, as well as prizes for composition, analysis and aesthetics. Tom said: I’m thrilled to have been commissioned to write an orchestral piece to open the First Night of the 2017 BBC Proms. Edward Gardner will conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of St. John’s Dance at London’s Royal Albert Hall on the 14th of July. The concert also features Igor Levit playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 and John Adams’ Harmonium with the BBC Symphony Chorus.
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Emily Mitchell (MusB, 2013) Music Supervisor, PlayNetwork I create and deliver immersive music experiences for some of the world’s best known brands. The creative control over projects is the main aspect of my job that I love. Being able to curate what music the public listen to on a daily basis and push emerging artists also makes my job highly rewarding. Studying Music at Manchester enabled me to differentiate myself from the competition through the many opportunities to broaden my musical knowledge. Courses ranging from classical to electroacoustic music have helped me to adapt to client needs across the music spectrum.
Christina McNeill (MusB, 2014) Arts Council Fundraising Fellow, Hallé Orchestra I’m on a 12 month traineeship hosted by the Halle learning from experts in the field and supporting the organisations’ fundraising efforts, whilst working towards a Postgraduate Certificate in Arts Fundraising & Philanthropy. I enjoy how my work now is still so centred on the arts and music. The fellowship provides a fantastic opportunity to learn about the business side of arts charities but also gives me the chance to help nourish, and make a difference to, a genre that I feel so passionate about. Fundraising is so often overlooked but is completely essential to arts charities’ survival; combined with working in such a prestigious organisation I really value the sense of making a difference. The University of Manchester Music Department taught me not to shy away from a challenge. My tutors gave me so much support and guidance when taking on large tasks which helped me to break them down into manageable amounts. Furthermore, the Music Society opened my eyes to work that had to be done outside of the rehearsal room to get performances and shows to take place.
Contact Details Music Newsletter May 2016
Jamie Clark Undergraduate Admissions Office School of Arts, Languages and Cultures A19, Samuel Alexander Building The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PT United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)161 275 4987 ug-music@manchester.ac.uk