Employability Statement
RNCM graduates excel as leaders in the creative industries and education sectors across the world. Alumni are performers and conductors; composers writing for world-class ensembles and for film and television; music teachers; broadcasters and recording engineers; and session musicians. Their success is based on a core and unchanging purpose, which is to enable talented young people to fulfil their potential as musicians for the enrichment of society. The RNCM’s innovative approach to employability led to recognition as a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, with its focus on ‘dynamic career building for tomorrow’s musician’.
Learning and teaching for employability is central, with students forming strong professional relations with instrumental and composition tutors, themselves active in the music business. Creative and entrepreneurial skills development are embedded, with personal development planning, career advice and business skills being core elements of the under- and postgraduate courses. Professional Studies enables preparation for a fulfilling and valuable portfolio musical career. Career development is at the heart of a diverse and primarily vocationally-oriented training.
Professional work experience schemes are undertaken with orchestras and ensembles in Manchester, Liverpool, and across the region. Students can make direct links with employers: with orchestras and ensembles such as the BBC Philharmonic, Hallé and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and with the two resident ensembles, Manchester Camerata and the Black Dyke Band; or as animateurs through the Music in Education courses. All RNCM students develop their own vocationally-orientated skills, whether as performer or teacher, or as an arts manager, or in other parts of the creative sector.
Formal partnerships include those with Access to Music, with whom the RNCM has developed a Foundation Degree in Popular Music; Manchester’s School of Sound Recording; and education and community providers including the ABRSM, North West Music Services, Greater Manchester Music Action Zone, the Seashell Trust, Music Unlimited, Artis, and Live Music Now. The Music for Health Learning programme connects RNCM musicians with healthcare practitioners, and the College is the sole UK partner of European Chamber Music Academy. Partnerships with the world’s leading music conservatoires permit study abroad, and the establishment of international contacts.
The Sound Advice service offers extra help to students, graduates and alumni for employment and professional development, assisting on topics such as self-promotion and finance, offering introductory sessions conducted by industry partners, as well as providing bulletins on job opportunities. It provides a service for promoters who engage graduates and alumni for performances, offering hundreds of professional engagements each year for music clubs, companies and events.
An RNCM musician develops high-level transferable skills: imagination and creativity, flexibility, team-working, communication, time-management and organisation must be exemplary. For the small minority of students who wish to pursue a career outside of music the College has associations with other regional HE providers’ career advice and support services.
For more detail on the approach of the RNCM to the employability of its musicians, go to www.rncm.ac.uk .
