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RWCMD Launches Music Professional Development Week

1 November 2016

This week the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama relaunches its employability focus with a new Professional Development Week.

This builds on the success of the College’s groundbreaking REPCo week where students put on their own events, gaining experience in finance, artistic planning, marketing and production, and its top rating for employability for music graduates in the Guardian University Guide.

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In rehearsal for Piano Profile, a series of piano concerts showcasing a diverse range of piano pieces from across the world, and performed in venues in and around Cardiff.

The foundation of this new ethos gives each student’s career path individual attention. By the time they reach their third year they will have been matched with a professional industry mentor to guide and advise them in their chosen career pathway.

Radio 3 presenter Tom Redmond  is one of the guest lecturers. His message is simple: being a musician is just the start.

“As a freelance musician it’s vital that you’re as employable as possible, able to adapt to anything in any environment, whether that be concert hall, recording studio, school, prison or community workshop.

Increasingly orchestral musicians are having to take on more education work.

The more experience a student has of these fields, the more employable they’re going to be. Although it’s important to be completely focused on your own individual instrument, musicians can have a tendency to ignore so many incredible things around us that could inform our art form, and enhance us as performers.


As classical musicians we possess a diverse skills set. It’s really important that we make the most of that potential and don’t limit ourselves to just one area.”

 

The Professional Development week takes place around the middle of each term and timetables compulsory, non-assessed activity that focuses on employability issues for all music students.

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All That Malarkey, an operatic cabaret act led by composition graduate David George Harrington, also grew out of REPCo. The popular ensemble regularly return to RWCMD for professional engagements.

 

The students then have the afternoons and evenings to put these skills in to practice, with access to all of the College’s venues for their performances in the REPCo element of the week.

“We’ve built on our hugely successful REPCo week, looking at what works for the students, and where we could improve our offer,” explains Brian Weir, Head of Student Experience at the College.

“We could see that it was really working for those students that took part it in and contributed hugely to their success and ability to fulfil their chosen journey.

The students progress will also be tracked on Moodle so that by the time they leave they not only have an academic CV but will also have a document of all the transferrable skills they’ve generated.

We felt that this is such a fundamental part of their learning that we have taken and expanded on the best elements and embedded it into the timetable so that all students will benefit. “

These classes guide the music students on a journey throughout their four year degree, taking them through sessions that include professional attitude, building their social footprint, and presentation and platform manner.

They also include self-motivation, time-management, self-promotion, writing effective programme notes, and outreach and community work, as well as mindfulness and managing anxiety, as well as career options.

Editors notes 

REPCo is a student enterprise company funded by the Welsh Government. Its Board of Directors – which is made up of RWCMD students – is responsible for distributing funds to a range of student initiatives, enabling them to produce and perform their own artistic projects, and get vital experience in aspects of arts management from financing and planning to marketing and publicity.

All profits are channeled back into the company allowing them to support more new projects every year.

For one week each term, the College hands over its venues for a range of performances under the REPCo umbrella.