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Celebrating 125 Years of the Birmingham Conservatoire.Pdf 2 CONTENTS 3 PRINCIPAL’S PERSPECTIVE 4 ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT 6 ACADEMIC STANDARDS: NOW AND THEN 9 EARLY LEADERSHIP 10 PRINCIPALS 14 BUILDINGS 18 THE CBSO 23 SUPPORTING STUDENTS 26 OUR UNIQUE CONTEXT 28 PROFILES PRINCIPAL’S PERSPECTIVE The history of Birmingham Conservatoire is a fascinating one. 3 Beginning life as a locally-focused provincial music school serving largely part-time students, the Conservatoire has become one of the UK’s leading institutions for professional music training and education. BIRMINGHAM Of course, we continue to have strong ties to the Midlands, with it’s rich My own involvement in the Conservatoire dates from 1978 since when there CONSERVATOIRE cultural infrastructure. However, the Conservatoire is also now decidedly have been immense changes. More are on their way, some external - student international in outlook. As lively members of the European Association fees, government funding - and some specific to us as we look forward to of Conservatoires, we enjoy a wealth of partnerships with our European moving to a splendid, grade 2 listed building, close to our present site in 2014, counterparts, enabling students and staff to benefit from our Erasmus and the opening of our brand new concert hall on Centenary Way in 2016. AFTER exchange programme and special projects. Our student population from outside the EU has grown to nearly 100, and with it, our links to institutions in It is a privilege to work in such a distinguished institution, especially when it 125 Malaysia, Singapore and China. reaches a special anniversary. YEARS Ad multos annos! Birmingham Conservatoire has always been part of a larger organisation - these days, Birmingham City University - and has thereby developed a broader, more outward-facing approach to training its students. In other words, we aim to prepare them for life and a career in the real world! Professor David Saint ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT 4 The origins of Birmingham Conservatoire date back to a time of tremendous round the teacher, with music pinned on one another’s backs. Numbers eventually civic and artistic energy in Birmingham. The Triennial Festivals had been declined, but the Class continued to attract nearly 200 students each evening. established in 1784 and the Town Hall had opened in 1834. The same year, the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) founded the Birmingham The BMI had provided space for the RBSA’s work until its School’s new building Government School of Design. The country’s first municipal art school, it moved was completed. Upon its vacation of several rooms on the second floor, the into its own iconic building on Margaret Street in 1884 where it flourishes today BMI decided to open a number of new classes in music. Eventually, it was BIRMINGHAM as the School of Art within Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. decided to group all of the musical instruction and theory classes together as a discreet entity within the Institute. Active since 1800, Birmingham’s Philosophical Institution gave way to the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI) in the late 1850s. Its first musical CONSERVATOIRE class, Elementary Instruction in Singing, was established in the Industrial BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL OF MUSIC WAS OFFICIALLY CONSTITUTED IN 1886 – THE FIRST MUSIC SCHOOL TO BE ESTABLISHED IN ENGLAND Department in 1859 and taken by Alfred J Sutton, conductor of the Amateur OUTSIDE LONDON. Harmonic Association (what had been the Ladies’ Choir of the Philosophical Institute). In 1863, an enormously popular Penny Class in Elementary Singing AFTER was opened; by 1874, the average number attending was 543! William Charles Stockley accepted an invitation to become Honorary Principal 125 and on the Staff were, amongst others, Mr Astley Langston (pianoforte); AR Gaul, YEARS AR Gaul joined the teaching staff in 1877 to take a class in the Theory of Music, John Pearce and Rowland Winn (singing), and TM Abbott (violin and violoncello). A marking the first step toward more rounded instruction; classes in Harmony Scholarships Fund was established and a number of individuals and businesses and Counterpoint were also started. Gaul’s class was a success; in 1879 began to donate to enable students to attend the newly constituted School. one of his students received the first prize in Harmony in the Society of Arts examination and another, the second prize at Trinity College. The Musical Times reported the official opening of the School in its October 1886 issue: “No fewer than 1,500 students have entered the School of Music The first instrumental classes opened in 1882: advanced violin and a Penny Class connected with the Birmingham Midland [sic] Institute. There are classes in all for elementary violin teaching. The number of attendees at the latter rose from branches of the art, including orchestral instruments, the fee for elementary 409 on the first night, to 525 on the third night, with students standing in a ring study of the violin, being as low as one penny per lesson”. UNFOUNDED CONCERNS 5 In October 1886 the Musical Times wrote: “ Local music teachers view with concern the gradual development of the teaching functions of the musical section of the Midland Institute,... with which no private teacher can pretend to compete. Besides mixed classes under competent professors for the study of solo and choral singing (including the tonic sol-fa system), theory of music, harmony and counterpoint, and the several instruments of the modern orchestra, a special group of ladies’ classes... are held on the first three days of the week for instruction in pianoforte and violin playing, theory of music, and singing, both elementary and advanced, for soloists and choristers. ... The nomination of Mr Stockley as honorary principal of the school is a guarantee for the soundness of the scheme and the quality of the instruction, but it need scarcely be pointed out how seriously the success of the undertaking must affect the position and earnings of unattached members of the musical profession here”. ACADEMIC STANDARDS: NOW AND THEN OWING PARTLY TO ITS INCLUSION IN A UNIVERSITY, BIRMINGHAM CONSERVATOIRE IS TODAY PRAISED FOR THE BALANCE OF PRACTICAL AND ACADEMIC WORK IN ITS COURSES. HOWEVER, IN ITS EARLY DAYS - CATERING TO AN EXCLUSIVELY LOCAL POPULATION - THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC WAS FAR MORE MODEST IN ITS ACADEMIC ASPIRATIONS AND EXPECTATIONS. 6 When Frederic Corder examined the School of Music in 1897, his Report drew future years to introduce the sector’s first BA (Hons) in Music in 1983, and to protests from several of the School staff in the subject of Rudiments of Music, accept the country’s first conservatoire-based research students in 1992.) on the grounds that the paper was far too difficult. Mr Corder pointed out that students elsewhere were not considered worthy to go up for examination in The School’s 1961 return to the Robbins Committee on Higher Education any subject until they could obtain at least 70 marks in a far more searching showed a great deal of consideration of its contribution to higher education and paper. At the time, the School still felt the paper was too difficult, considering the musical life of the region. In the same report, the School also advocated BIRMINGHAM its ‘character’ as a local institution for local people. the foundation of a network of music colleges, foreshadowing the foundation of the Federation of British Conservatoires (now Conservatoires UK). Things began to change. Individual 20-minute lessons had been introduced in 1894, and by November 1901, students could receive a 30 or 40 minute lesson Sponsored by the Royal College of Music, the School was accepted into the CONSERVATOIRE on payment of a proportionately increased fee. Harmony classes were also Association of European Colleges of Music (AEC) in 1965. It was a founding advised (and financially incentivised) for all instrumental students. Languages member of CUKAS, the Conservatoires UK Admissions System, in 2005. entered the curriculum – starting with Italian – in 1901. Today the Conservatoire embraces early, world and contemporary music, AFTER Though still decidedly regional, the School began to gain in status towards the as well as the classical cannon and jazz, and has become a strong local 125 turn of the 19th Century. From 1889, the Joseph Maas Memorial Fund included and regional resource. However, while still rooted in its community, the YEARS the School with the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music in the Conservatoire enjoys a strong international profile and recruits around a rotation of its annual £10 prize. Representing the School, the BMI was registered quarter of its students from outside the UK. Its graduates are among the most as a member of the International Music Society in 1907. In the same year, the successful in the country and its student satisfaction is second to none in the School began actively to advertise for students from surrounding cities. conservatoire sector (2011 National Student Survey). In 1912 the School requested the insertion of a clause in the next ‘Omnibus THE FRIENDLY AND WELCOMING NATURE DEVELOPED 125 YEARS Bill’ of the Corporation of Birmingham, giving power to the BMI to grant AGO REMAINS A DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC, ONE FOR WHICH THE Diplomas of Associate or Licentiate in the subject of Music. (It would go on in CONSERVATOIRE HAS BECOME RENOWNED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. THE JUNIOR CONSERVATOIRE 7 In 1905, the School began to address the education of younger musicians: a junior class for under-16s in Rudiments of Music was planned and afternoon Chamber Music classes were established in 1920 for Junior as well as Senior musicians. By 1958/9, approximately 90 of the School’s 630 students were under the age of 16, but the establishment of a self- contained Junior School was some way off.
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