Thank you for your interest in the post of Principal of Birmingham Conservatoire. In addition to the Job Description and Person Specification included in the application pack, we’re taking this opportunity to set out some context for the role. This is an important strategic appointment for us and we are looking for a leader with flair and energy to lead our Conservatoire through its most exciting stage of development yet. As part of the selection process we will be giving candidates an opportunity to visit us, see our facilities and talk about our plans. Until then, we’ll be pleased to answer informal inquiries if you feel you have the experience and capability for this role.

Professor Cliff AllanProfessor David Roberts

Vice-ChancellorDean of Arts, Design and Media

Birmingham City UniversityBirmingham City University

History

Birmingham Conservatoire’s origins go back to the foundation of Birmingham School of Music in 1886. The Conservatoire is now part of Birmingham City University (BCU), sitting alongside eight other distinguished providers of arts education in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media: the Schools of Acting, Architecture, Art, English, Fashion, Jewellery, Media, and Visual Communication. No other Faculty combines such breadth and depth of arts education. Following the retirement of Professor David Saint, an opportunity arises to lead the Conservatoire into a new building and a new phase of its development, adjacent to one of the country’s most sophisticated new university campuses and comprehending a top-ten UK drama school in the shape of Birmingham School of Acting.

Under the new leadership of Professor Cliff Allan, the University’s vision is "To be the leading university for creative and professional practice inspired by innovation and enquiry."Birmingham Conservatoire is central to that mission.

A member of CUK and a founding member the AEC,the Conservatoireis one of a small, select group of UK institutions providing internationally respected specialist professional performance education. It is a place where talent develops, individual creativity flourishes and successful careers begin – all against the backdrop of one of the UK’s greatest modern cities. In 2017 the Conservatoire will achieve still greater mass and opportunity through merging with Birmingham School of Acting, a leading Drama UK-accredited provider of actor education and of ground-breaking work in Applied Performance.

Individuals of global and historic renown have worked with and influenced ourdevelopment over the past century and a half. They include Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Adrian Boult, Rudolph Schwarz, Hugo Rignold, Cicely Berry and Sir Simon Rattle.

Scale

Every year the Conservatoire educates nearly 650 students, attracts over 30,000 visitors, provides facilities for 110 professional and business users and organises up to 300 events. Its Junior Conservatoire recruits 250 young musicians annually, placing special emphasis on talent from some of the most disadvantaged and ethnically diverse areas of the city. Birmingham School of Acting currently has a roll of 270 students, mounts 16 full-scale performances every year, and recruits regionally and internationally, in particular from the USA.

Partnerships are key to our work. We run numerous initiatives with other key players in the City of Birmingham’s cultural portfolio, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Town Hall/Symphony Hall,the Birmingham Hippodrome, the Birmingham Rep, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and the award-winning choir, Ex Cathedra. In collaboration with these partners, every year we mount the Arts Council-funded Frontiers Festival, celebrating the work of major living composers such Pierre Boulez and Louis Andriessen. Our MA Professional Voice Practice programme is co-designed and endorsed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Our emphasis is on training performers and creators in their chosen field. Conservatoire pedagogy is highly individualised, with significant amounts of one to one and small group teaching.We are leaders in music education and research: witness our position at or near the top of national league tables for research, student satisfaction and postgraduate education, and for developing talent for orchestras, ensembles and opera houses the world over. Out of the 20 music commissions for the 2012 London Olympics, no fewer than four were awarded to Birmingham Conservatoire staff.The Junior Conservatoire educates hundreds of young people annually and works closely with other agencies to support the talented and disadvantaged and those from ethnic minorities. It provides a vital link connecting schools, young performers, teaching, and the music profession.

Relocation

Birmingham Conservatoire is currently located in Paradise Circus, in the heart of the city and its historic cultural quarter. The redevelopment of that site including the closure of the old Central Library and the development of the new Library of Birmingham in Centenary Square has necessitated the relocation of the Conservatoire.

Birmingham is home to some of the finest cultural assets and institutions in the world, including Symphony Hall, the Library of Birmingham and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The planned new site of the Conservatoire will be Eastside, a burgeoning area of our city which has undergone extensive regeneration in recent yearsand is fast becoming the city’s new hub for culture and education. It is home to Millennium Point, Think Tank, Birmingham Ormiston Academy, Aston University, Birmingham Metropolitan College and the new City Centre Campus of BCU. Eastside will be the location for the terminating station for High Speed 2. Once HS2 is complete, journey times from London into Birmingham city centre will be reduced to only 45 minutes with the potential to bring £1.5 billion of investment into the region, further establishing the importance of Eastside.

The Conservatoire will be the latest chapter in this regeneration and reconfiguration of Birmingham city centre. This new Conservatoire will open in its new home in 2017.

A New Conservatoire

The development of a newconservatoire presents an outstanding opportunity to build on its history and acclaim. The present Conservatoire is a 1970s build which has been remodeled and retrofitted several times over the years to meet growing and changing demands. However, the building no longer meets the space and technological sophistication required of a 21st century world-class teaching and performing facility.

Plans for the new Conservatoire include:

  • 9,000 square meters of teaching, rehearsal and performance space
  • A new 500 seat concert hall, ensuring the continued provision of much needed performance of this size for Birmingham, replacing the Adrian Boult Hall
  • Six recording studios
  • Practice rooms
  • Ensemble rooms

Already retaining outstanding teaching and research staff, there is now an opportunity to do much more: to build a Conservatoire with truly world-class facilities. This will attract the best and brightest students to Birmingham, attract internationally renowned performers and teachers and create some of the best concert spaces in the city. By doing so, the Conservatoire will rival leading institutions globally and help to establish further Birmingham’s cultural reputation alongside global cities like London and New York.

The new Conservatoire will sustain the best traditions of excellence in instrumental, vocal, orchestral, ensemble, performance and pedagogic training and it will go further. It will be collocated with Birmingham City University’s £62 million media facilities, among the best the country and including TV and radio studios, sound engineering labs, and leading-edge games technology. This will create collaborative opportunities with student actors, writers, broadcasters, web designers, sound technologists, artists, designers and others committed to creative education. It will place emphasis on the musician as entrepreneur, aligned to the music and other creative industries. It will prepare students for the exciting new opportunities presented by music and performance for digital and image-based media.

Opportunity

So, we are looking for a visionary individual with the authority, guile and energy to seize this opportunity to define for a new generation the aims and characteristics of a modern Conservatoire. It is, we think, a great opportunity to think about the way performance education can take advantage of the best in digital technology, working in Europe’s youngest and most diverse city. We’re looking for someone who can imagine and implement new cross-curricular provision while maintaining the disciplines of Conservatoire training; someone who can rise to the challenge of raising funds for chairs and scholarships while managing a complex organisation; someone who can inspire staff and the people of our city to believe that here in Birmingham we have the best that performance training can offer.

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