No.1 in Scotland 1072 for graduate employment levels (HESA, 2014/15) students from 52 countries studied with RCS at undergraduate £1.4 and postgraduate level million 6th given to student scholarships in the world for performing arts education (QS World Rankings, 2016) 2 The Review Team Writer Phtography Jan Patience Ken Dundas 2015/16 3 Jan writes a regular column on the visual Ken is an established photographer, arts in The Herald newspaper and is a specialising in performing arts respected commentator on Scotland’s photography and portraits. He is the arts scene in print, radio, television and official photographer for the Royal online. She has worked as a journalist Conservatoire of Scotland, as well as 15 for over 25 years. She also works as a a freelance artist, and his work has communications consultant within the been exhibited in the Scottish National creative industries. Jan is co-author of Portrait Gallery. education 1st conservatoire in the UK a recently-published biography about internationally renowned Scottish artist, awards to offer a performance George Wyllie, Arrivals and Sailings: The Editor including the Herald Higher degree taught in British Making of George Wyllie (Polygon). Linda Innes Education Award for Widening Sign Language Access, Music Teacher of the Year Linda works in marketing for the Royal and Jazz Educator of the Year Award Conservatoire of Scotland, and has a background in editing and publishing. Design – Fourtwentyseven (0427.co.uk) £2.3 All details are correct at the time of publication and printed in good faith. To find out more about the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland please visit million rcs.ac.uk or contact [email protected] 516 Creative Campus development project launched performances held across five venues within RCS itting in RCS Principal Jeffrey Sharkey’s airy office, with Ever-open to new ways of pushing boundaries, last year, Sharkey its baby grand piano and round window seat looking was delighted to see a new undergraduate degree, BA Performance down over Renfrew Street, it feels a little like being in a in British Sign Language and English, introduced to the S mini-oasis of calm. curriculum. The only higher education programme of its kind in Europe, it is designed around the learning and teaching needs of Outside in the cafe, there’s the usual hubbub of students and staff deaf performers. coming and going between classes; chatting, rehearsing lines, practising scales, tweeting. Outside, Glasgow goes about its business. “The great conservatoires in the US were created by people arriving Buses flash past as people rush to get out of the rain and the city’s from Europe,” says Sharkey. “Scotland is now at the vanguard of famous starlings swoop towards nearby George Square. activity around the performing arts; offering our students the knowledge to go out and change the world. The collaboration starts “I’d like to turn this outside area into a performance space,” says early here. In fact it is embedded into the curriculum as a module Sharkey in his soft mid-Atlantic accent. “It would bring the public for every student in RCS. into RCS and make them realise that it’s really an arts centre for all. There are more than 500 performances a year in this building and Every student in their first year takes part in an Introduction to they are all open to the public.” Collaborative Practice module where they work with other first year students from across all the programmes. The sparks which fly Professor Jeffrey Sharkey has been Principal of the Royal Conservatoire around this can lead to long-lasting partnerships.” of Scotland since September 2014. A pianist and a composer, Sharkey is passionate about creatives working across genres. “I fought hard As we talk, Sharkey enthuses about other collaborations not to be labelled when I was studying piano and composition at which are taking place, not least of all the newest one; a unique Manhattan School of Music in the 1980s,” he explains. “Art only thrives partnership with Dumfries House in Ayrshire (read more about when there is a huge variety of influences. My approach is that you this on page 16), which is set to work with its first students at the should never close doors. You can learn from everyone.” end of 2016. 4 A Principal Perspective 5 “Scotland is now at the vanguard of activity around the performing arts; offering our students the knowledge to go out and change the world.” Just three years before Sharkey’s arrival in Glasgow from Baltimore This brand new all-singing and dancing arts education programme (where he had been director of Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody will give young people the opportunity to access high-quality, Institute), the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) specialist dance and music tuition and Sharkey is clearly excited changed its name to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This re- about the doors which will open as a result. brand reflected a change in direction for a venerable institution which had trained generations of musicians and actors since 1847. “This moves the wholly collaborative approach of RCS on to a whole new level,” he says. “It’s a bold step to educate a In the last decade, Sharkey and his predecessor John Wallace, have new generation of artists for Scotland and beyond.” presided over huge changes at this world-famous conservatory for the performing arts. Student numbers have doubled. New With all this pedagogical activity does he ever get time to play that programmes and genres have been introduced. While most baby grand piano, I enquire? “I try to keep upping my own game,” he people think ‘music and drama’ when this famous Glasgow laughs. “I have been collaborating with students from the Scottish institution comes up in conversation, now it offers so much more; Traditional Music department lately and that has really taken me most notably Modern Ballet and the newly-designed Production out of my comfort zone!” Arts and Design, Production Technology and Management and Filmmaking programmes. For one student, looking back on three years Now on the cusp of a promising career – Journalist Jan Patience at RCS just before he graduates with a BA in Christopher’s performance as the Emcee visits RCS to find out Musical Theatre, the experience has been in Cabaret was described as ‘stunning’ – he life-changing. Christopher Jordan Marshall credits the training he received here as exactly what goes on gained plaudits for his performance as the “setting him up for life.” behind the doors of Emcee in an RCS production of Cabaret in spring 2016 (pictured on the front cover). Studying at RCS is all about making Scotland’s national and creating opportunities and Inside “I have absolutely loved my time here,” the Christopher has grabbed it with both conservatoire 21-year-old says, whilst drinking a coffee in hands. A special RCS showcase in the busy cafe bar. “It has helped me grow front of potential agents in London and into a young adult and into the person I Glasgow in January of his third year saw am now. This school has taught me to be Christopher sign up with leading agency, intelligent and to know my craft. This place Curtis Brown. By the time it came to play the is for you to explore.” Emcee part, Christopher was ready to put everything he learned in his first two years RCS life Christopher, who was born in San Diego, at RCS into the character. There was a lot of but grew up in East Kilbride, first became expectation riding on the performance, he interested in acting when he was at school. admits now. Encouraged by an uncle who was involved t’s just another day in the seat of In his opening speech, Dickens told his in amateur dramatics, he attended a “It was time to consolidate and explore learning and major arts venue that is audience, “I find the institution nobly youth drama school in Glasgow where he technique. I put everything I learned in my Ithe Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. lodged; I find it with a reading-room, a learned the basics of professional singing first two years – as well as my whole heart – As I climb the famous steps to the main coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it with technique. into that character. I realised quickly that it entrance, I see a young woman in a black lectures given and in progress, in sound, was also a leadership role as that character beret sitting on the steps reading Chekhov’s useful and well-selected subjects.” “By fifth year, my passion was music and leads the company.” famous play, The Cherry Orchard. drama,” he says. “I applied to RCS and was To bring Dickens’ words bang up-to-date, invited to audition. It was always musical Not long after his performance in Glasgow, Walking into the large cafe area just inside this institution is still ‘nobly lodged’. But, theatre I was interested in and the programme Christopher went to the US with a group RCS, where I am meeting Musical Theatre as he knew all-too-well, time and tide wait had been running for a good few years by then. of fellow students. While there he met RCS 6 student Christopher Jordan Marshall, my for no man – or woman (he lived in sexist I was shocked to get a first audition. Then I alumnus, Alan Cumming, who won a Tony ears tune in to a mini-rehearsal in a distant times). Today, the RCS campus takes in its was shocked to get a second and finally a award for the same Emcee role on Broadway.