Educational Associates
About Waterbear – The College of Music:
About Waterbear – The College of Music
WaterBear – The College of Music was founded in 2018 by music education pioneers Adam Bushell and Bruce John Dickinson. Together they each have more than 30 years’ experience in professional music and 25 years at the highest level of music education.
WaterBear offer BA (Hons) and master’s degree courses for today’s musicians, artists and industry professionals focusing on the development of specialist and transferable skills, and long-term career strategy. They are committed to small class sizes, flexible course delivery, one-to-one mentoring, and exclusive work experience and career development opportunities.
Students learn from leading music innovators at their UK city-wide campuses in Brighton and Sheffield, or online via remote learning. Their unique master’s courses have been designed for both music degree graduates and those with successful careers in the music industry focusing on a range of specialist areas, from music performance, to production, recording, business and professional project work.
About the University of South Wales:
About The University of South Wales
The University of South Wales (USW) is one of Britain’s most exciting and ambitious universities. Innovative, thriving and sustainable, we work to build better futures for our students, our communities and our partners economically, socially and culturally.
USW places engagement, collaboration, and partnership working at the heart of everything we do, working alongside business, industry, and the social economy, to address identified needs and achieve the best outcomes for individual learners and organisations. We work in collaboration with industry, researching and innovating to tackle some of the biggest global challenges, from energy and health to security and sustainability.
USW is a vocationally-focused university, preparing students to support key industries now, and in the future. Employers work closely with USW to co-create curriculum that supports their future needs. This provides them with a skilled and relevant workforce that they can rely on with a large pipeline of graduates coming out of USW and our partner institutions each year. We are generating the workforce that employers tell us they want and need.
We are a multi-disciplinary university with a strong track record for our partnerships, widening access, and student success, with almost half of students at USW coming from areas within the bottom two quintiles of the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) – significantly above average for higher education institutions in Wales and the UK.
With three campuses in Cardiff, Newport and Pontypridd, we are well placed for our staff and students to enjoy all that South Wales has to offer. We also provide a range of inclusive study pathways, supporting life-long learning and flexible options for our students. We work closely with our partner colleges, and have two wholly owned subsidiaries, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and The College Merthyr Tydfil.
About Point Blank:
Point Blank has been guiding its students from eager beginners to industry players since it was established in 1994. The School has won various awards for its outstanding achievements including ‘Best Independent University’ from WhatUni, as voted by the students. Among its industry-rooted lecturers you will find Grammy-award winners, successful label owners, A&R heads and international tour managers.
Point Blank’s BA (Hons) Music Industry Management degree provides a combination of genuine music industry connectivity alongside academic accreditation validated by Middlesex University. Students can enjoy regular masterclasses from leading industry figures such as Nick Halkes (XL Recordings), Ferry Corsten, Claude Von Stroke, Zane Lowe and many more. The degree programme culminates in a ‘Start-Up Lab’, where students can develop their business ideas into reality giving them enabling them to enter the music industry with our support prior to graduation.
Through Point Blank’s long-developed industry connections, music industry students have the chance to build their knowledge and connections by experiencing a wide range of industry events, intimate guest Q&As, exclusive internships and most importantly, job opportunities.
Point Blank’s partnership with MMF:
Point Blank is hugely excited to partner with the Music Manager’s Forum to further enhance opportunities for its students to build their knowledge, real-world experience and industry connections. This partnership will see the start of a long and fruitful collaboration which will positively increase the quality and knowledge of the music managers of the future as they emerge from our institution and contribute to the industry.
About Middlesex University:
Launched in 2001, BA(Hons) Music Business & Arts Management at Middlesex University was the UK’s first such degree and continues to prepare students for employment and further study in a number of music, arts, and business sectors: from live music, entrepreneurship and project management, to musicology, copyright law and marketing, the programme is multi-disciplined, offers regular contact with the professional world, and is proud to have achieved a 100% student satisfaction rating in the 2020 National Student Survey.
Chris Dromey, Associate Professor in Music welcomed the partnership:
“Middlesex University is thrilled to become an Educational Associate of the MMF. The continuing success of the music industries in the UK rests on greater sharing of ideas and more active and transparent thinking about entrepreneurial and ethical practices. Our partnership with the MMF is an important step towards achieving these goals, helping bridge the gap between academia and industry and giving our Music Business & Arts Management students exciting opportunities to collaborate with MMF managers.”
MMF Chief Executive Annabella Coldrick said:
“Middlesex University’s BA in Music Business and Arts Management has built an enviable reputation, and through our Associate Partnership I’m delighted that MMF members will have a pathway to share with students their experiences and knowledge. 2020 has been a challenging year, but music still offers an exciting future for young people and this kind of collaboration is important for the long-term evolution of our business. We can’t wait to get going.”
Some information from Middlesex University below:
“All of our staff are all either active practitioners or researchers in music, the arts, and business. Our expert academic team leads the way with industry-centred research, with recent books including Chris Dromey and Julia Haferkorn’s The Classical Music Industry and Zuleika Beaven, Richard Osborne and Marcus O’Dair’s Mute Records: Artists, Business, History. We are equally proud of our students’ successes:graduates of Music Business and Arts Management have been recruited in recent years by the likes of MTV, Kobalt, Help Musicians UK, Universal, PRS for Music, Columbia Records, TripAdvisor, Boosey & Hawkes, and PPL, among many other organisations. Similarly, our students have secured, and continue to secure, internships and placements with the likes of the NME, Bath International Music Festival, Sound Diplomacy, HarrisonParrott, Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Barbican.
The Music department to which BA(Hons) Music Business & Arts Management belongs hosts a public Concerts & Colloquia series during term-time. Guest speakers have included, among others, Gillian Moore CBE (Southbank Centre), Mark Lawrence (PRS for Music), Geoff Travis (Rough Trade), James Gillespie (Sony Music), Tom Robinson (BBC 6Music), Dave Tomberlin (Interscope-Geffen-A&M), Paul Reed (AIF), Daniel Miller (Founder/CEO, Mute Records, and also Honorary Visiting Professor, Middlesex University, Dr Shruti Jauhari (KM Music Conservatory, India), and Sam Jordan (Musicians’ Union). Recent field trips arranged to further strengthen students’ industry links have included visits to: London’s Roundhouse, Union Chapel, St John’s Smith Square, Handel-Hendrix Museum, and Kings Place; Sage Gateshead (Music Futures); Cardiff’s Millennium Centre and Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre (Association of Independent Festivals Congress); Brighton’s Appetite for Disruption conference; and BBC Music Introducing Live.
Such initiatives are underpinned by a personal mentoring scheme that actively supports our students’ scholarly and professional development, guiding their career preparation and ambitions. To offer the very best specialist training and education, most of our modules are taught exclusively to Music Business and Arts Management students. Other modules include students of Music, Popular Music, Production, and Jazz, enabling a wide range of musical styles and practices to be covered and opening up exciting opportunities for collaboration across the Music department.”
About The University of West London:
University of West London offers career-focused courses with excellent teaching in a campus designed for a great student experience.
UWL has been rated:
- Number 1 in the UK for student satisfaction, student voice and academic support in the National Student Survey (NSS) 2022.
- Best modern* London university (non-specialist) in the 2023 Complete University Guide.
- Number 23 out of 121 universities nationwide in The Guardian University Guide 2023.
- University of the Year for Student Experience and University of the Year for Teaching Quality in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023.
- UWL is ranked in the top 100 universities in the UK for the overall quality of our research and almost 80% of our research is rated as world-leading or internationally excellent (3*) in the latest Government Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment.
London College of Music (LCM) which is based in the University of West London is the largest specialist music and performing arts institution in the UK and has been in existence for over 130-years. As an all-Steinway school with one of Europe’s largest studio complexes, we offer an impressive range of innovative courses, which are respected worldwide and delivered with creativity and passion by our expert staff. Our dance and drama courses were ranked number two in the UK and number one in London in the Guardian University Guide 2023.
About Gloucestershire University:
The University of Gloucestershire is a diverse, vibrant community of 12,000 students and 1,500 staff with campuses in Cheltenham and Gloucester. Our teaching dates back to 1847; we’ve come a long way since then and have exciting plans for the future.
Our goals
- Education – to support our students, in the UK and overseas, to learn well by providing an outstanding education
- Student Life – to support our students to thrive and flourish
- Student Outcomes – to support our students to achieve their full potential in their careers and their lives
- Research, Innovation and Enterprise – to undertake excellent research and encourage innovation and enterprise for students, staff and partners
- Civic Role – to promote the wellbeing and advancement of our community
Our thematic ambitions
- Belonging: We aspire to be a community which values positive human relationships in everything we do.
- Connected: Across the range of our activities, we aim to be outward looking, externally engaged and connected, working with partners for mutual benefit.
- Global: At University of Gloucestershire, we aim to provide a welcoming and supportive community for our international students, who help to create a rich, diverse, globally-aware environment for all our students.
- Sustainability: For many years, we have been a leading university in the UK for sustainability. We have integrated sustainability across all aspects of our operations, including the curriculum and research, as well as management of our estate.
About UD:
UD is a London-based music organisation bringing communities together around Black music and Black music culture. With over 20 years of experience in nurturing and supporting Black and culturally diverse artists when they need it most, UD acts as a bridge between burgeoning talent and the music industry.
At UD, we are passionate about excellence, and the potential for excellence in every young person we encounter. Aligning professionalism and business acumen with an understanding of youth and subculture, we run industry-led events, artist development and employment support programmes. Those that have come through our doors can now be found working at institutions including Island Records, Nike, Rinse FM, GRM Daily, Beats and SBTV. Artists we have helped and showcased at early stages of their career include Wretch32, Little Simz, Ghetts, Andreya Triana, Maverick Sabre, Dyo, Devlin, Labrinth, Skepta and Paigey Cakey.
Since 2000, when UD was co-founded by a group of hip-hop artists, we have understood that young people need the resources and space to create and explore their potential; UD works for a world where young people who make and love Black Music, are recognised as equal to any excellent creative individuals, and are celebrated and supported as such. Whether they’re on their first steps into music, just breaking into notoriously competitive creative environments, or about to make it big, we provide the tools they need: Excellence, confidence, structure, opportunity and networks.
About City University:
City University of London is a leading UK University, with a global vision and a commitment to transforming lives through education. It is home to nearly 20,000 students and has over 150,000 alumni from over 170 countries. Located in the industry rich hub of central London, City prides itself on being the University of business, practice, and the professions.
Established in 1894, City is a member institute of the University of London, having joined in 2016. City is composed of six academic Schools offering both undergraduate and postgraduate courses: Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), the City Law School, the School of Communication and Creativity, the School of Policy and Global Affairs, the School of Science and Technology and the School of Health and Psychological Sciences.
It’s not just students’ academic development that’s important to City. City offers a wide range of services to support students from day one, to help them settle in and cope with the pressures that come with student life. Students at City are part of a welcoming and diverse community, with student counselling, buddy schemes, active student societies, Students’ Union and an award-winning student centre. City’s active alumni community continue to be involved with the institution and give their time and share their knowledge with current students, helping them with industry insight and building confidence for life beyond university.
About The Royal Northern College of Music:
Founded in 1973 through the merger of the Royal Manchester College of Music and Northern School of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) is continually recognised as one of the world’s most forward-thinking conservatoires. Home to over 900 students from more than 60 countries, it is dedicated to providing an outstanding education that propels students into careers as inspiring and versatile musicians, fully-equipped for exciting futures both on and off stage.
Throughout their studies, students have unparalleled opportunities to perform to public audiences and to work alongside professional musicians and visiting artists. Performance includes everything from large orchestral projects and cross-school collaborations to full-scale opera productions, intimate chamber concerts, solo recitals, and student-led initiatives.
A whole strand of the RNCM undergraduate offer is also dedicated to artist development, helping students to market and promote themselves, develop and deliver independent projects, and manage their finances. All BMus (Hons) students undertake an industry placement during their time at the College, and Popular Music undergraduates complete a module on Professional Engagement, allowing them to work as freelance musicians or gain industry experience as part of their degree.
