gsmd.ac.uk
Annual Report 2018/19
Guildhall School is provided by the City of London as part of its contribution to the cultural life of London and the nation.
About Guildhall School delivers world-leading professional training in music, drama and production arts, working in dynamic partnership with leading artists, companies and ensembles.
The School enjoys a unique historic role in the cultural life of the City of London, yet our perspective is global and forwardlooking. Our state of the art performance and teaching spaces, eminent staff and progressive curriculum attract students from over 60 countries to pursue their ambitions as the next generation of world-class artists. We foster exploration, innovation and entrepreneurship among both staff and students, and seek to embed leading edge research into the impact of the arts and the role of artists in the 21st century. Our fundamental commitment is to the transformative power of the artist within society. Our mission is to empower artists to realise their full potential; to develop distinctive artistic citizens who enrich the lives of others and make a positive impact in the world. gsmd.ac.uk
Cover image: Beasts of London Š Museum of London
Welcome Welcome to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Annual Report for 2018/19.
This year has seen significant, strategic advancement of our vision for craft, creativity and learning at the forefront of cultural change. And the value of the School’s collaborative approach in helping to deliver that vision has been very much in evidence. As part of the School’s renewed focus on work with children and young people, a pioneering partnership with Islington Council has laid the groundwork for every child in the London borough to have access to exceptional music education through Music Education Islington. Our creative alliance with the Barbican Centre has produced a recordbreaking year for learning and participation through our joint Creative Learning programme. The scope of our ongoing work with the Barbican, City of London Corporation, London Symphony Orchestra and Museum of London to create Culture Mile as a major destination for culture and creativity has been hugely amplified by our visionary joint proposal for the Centre for Music: a world-class venue for music performance and education in the heart of the City. All of this work, and a great deal more, is underpinned by ambitious strategic objectives which provide direction and impetus for Guildhall’s role as a conservatoire for the 21st century. This report sets out the progress we have made towards our objectives this year. My thanks go to the staff, Board members and Trustees, as well as our many partners and supporters, for all their work in helping to deliver these objectives. We hope you enjoy reading about our positive impact, and we welcome your support for our continued success.
Lynne Williams am Principal For our full Reports and Financial Statements, visit gsmd.ac.uk/financialstatements
Welcome | 1
A conservatoire for the 21st century
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Contents Our objectives
5
Distinctive training for world-class artists
6
Reputation and rankings Programme development Artistic citizenship World-class artists
Strong bonds at the heart of the City
8 9 10 12
16
Partnerships 17
Helping young artists find their creative voice Children and young people Creative Learning
Leading positive cultural change
20 21 24
26
Research 27 Guildhall Live Events 28 Creative Entrepreneurs 30 Open Programmes 31 Coaching and mentoring 31
Fit for the 21st century Staff and faculty Facilities and strategic highlights Development and Alumni Relations A strong financial model Financial profile Higher education student profile Under-18s student profile
Celebrating success Alumni awards Student awards Roll call: Guildhall productions and events
Who’s who Our supporters Patron, Board of Governors and Senior Leadership
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 40
42 43 46 48
54 55 56
Contents | 3
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Our objectives Distinctive training for world-class artists
Helping young artists find their creative voice
We will deliver distinctive degree programmes which enable our artists to be world-class; virtuosi in their field; adaptable, purposeful and responsible artists in society.
We will refocus our outstanding and wide-reaching Guildhall Young Artists programme which helps young people find their creative voice.
Strong bonds at the heart of the City We will strengthen our unique bonds with the Barbican Centre and the City of London, and establish a creative destination in the City’s Culture Mile.
Fit for the 21st century We will ensure an evolving and sustainable institution through the acquisition and retention of worldleading staff, future-focussed learning and teaching spaces and resources and fit-for-purpose services, underpinned by a strong financial model.
Leading positive cultural change We will lead positive cultural change which impacts on society, our industry and the wider world through professional development, research and knowledge exchange and public engagement.
Three priorities cut across all of our objectives: Digital
International
Diverse
We will contribute to the future of the arts and creative industries through new technology and digital learning and engagement.
We will lead and partner on activity which builds an internationally engaged and globally relevant community.
We will build a teaching and learning environment which offers opportunities for everyone to engage with the arts, an environment that is enriched by a diverse creative community that reflects the society in which we live and work.
Our objectives | 5
Distinctive training for worldclass artists
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Guildhall programmes 2018/19 enrolment
Acting BA in Acting and MA in Acting
Music BMus Strings, Wind, Brass, Percussion, Keyboard, Vocal Studies, Composition, Electronic Music, Jazz, Early Instruments
MMus/MPerf in Performance (Guildhall Artist Masters) Strings, Wind, Brass, Percussion, Keyboard, Vocal Studies, Opera Studies, Repetiteur, Piano Accompaniment, Chamber Music, Jazz, Historical Performance Practice, Orchestral Artistry
Artist Diploma Strings, Wind, Brass, Percussion, Keyboard, Vocal Studies, Opera Studies, Historical Performance
MMus/MComp in Composition (Guildhall Artist Masters) MA in Opera Making and Writing MA in Music Therapy
Production Arts BA in Production Arts BA in Video Design for Live Performance MA in Collaborative Theatre Production & Design
Shared courses with China This year, we welcomed the second cohort of students to the BA Acting Studies double degree programme with Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. In summer 2019, the first cohort of students returned to China to complete their final year. A cross-faculty staff delegation will visit Beijing in November 2019 to mark the renewal and re-validation of this unique programme. Meanwhile, our Production Arts Skills Exchange programme continued successfully in Shanghai, with growing interest from other Chinese regions (see page 17).
Creative Learning BA in Performance & Creative Enterprise
Research and Teaching PGCert in Performance Teaching MPhil/DMus MPhil/PhD
Distinctive training for world-class artists | 7
Reputation and rankings
7th
in the world for performing arts (QS World University Rankings 2019)
1st
among music conservatoires in the UK (Complete University Guide Music League Table 2020)
100%
Guildhall School of Music & Drama is a global leader of creative and professional practice in music, drama and production arts. We are delighted that this year, the School has consolidated its national and international reputation, and is now ranked as one of the top ten performing arts institutions in the world, and as the UK’s leading conservatoire.
QS World University Rankings 2019 Guildhall School was placed seventh in the world for performing arts in the QS World University Rankings 2019, based on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. We are proud to join the world’s top ten performing arts institutions in the global ranking table, including The Juilliard School in New York, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
overall student satisfaction for BA Acting and BA Performance & Creative Enterprise (National Student Survey 2019)
Application Fee Waiver and Access Bursary Application fee waivers are designed to support entry to our undergraduate programmes for students from low income households. One hundred and twenty applicants were awarded a waiver in 2018/19, which has been the scheme’s most successful year to date. Ten students who were given a waiver accepted offers to start their programme in September 2019, including students for BMus for the first time. Applicants were invited to Guildhall events, shows and confidence-building workshops which, as one applicant described, can provide a significant boost: “After applying to Guildhall a couple of times it really made the difference this year getting a taste of the School through the outreach programmes.” UK undergraduate students who qualify as care leavers, or estranged
8 | Distinctive training for world-class artists
Complete University Guide Music League Table 2020 The School’s national excellence in music was reaffirmed by our placement as the UK’s top-ranking conservatoire in the Complete University Guide Music League Table 2020, based on a range of measures including graduate prospects, research quality and student satisfaction.
National Student Survey and Whole School Survey We are especially pleased that our final year undergraduates gave the School overwhelming support in the National Student Survey 2019, which measures student satisfaction across eight domains. BA Acting students gave the School a 100% overall satisfaction rate for the second year running. BA Performance & Creative Enterprise students gave 100% satisfaction ratings for teaching and academic support. In Music, the largest undergraduate cohort at Guildhall, the School received an 83% satisfaction rating. Our own Whole School Survey showed that over 92% of students were satisfied with the quality of teaching on their programme.
students (who have no contact or support from their parents) and independent students on low incomes can also apply for a Guildhall Access Bursary of between £3,000 and £5,000 a year to support their studies.
120
application fee waivers to undergraduate degrees
£28k
to help with living costs for undergraduate students who are care leavers or estranged from their families
Programme development
Guildhall Session Orchestra conducted by Mike Roberts
The School’s five-year strategic plan is now in full force, and has enabled us to make strong progress in refining our teaching programmes and organisational structure, with new leadership in our Drama Department (see page 33), and a business unit, Guildhall Live Events, for our Production Arts Department (see page 28). We also strengthened our partnership with Central Academy of Drama in Beijing to deliver our BA Acting Studies double degree programme (see page 7). Exciting ideas for the future include a focus on cross-disciplinary, collaborative approaches to new programme development.
Electronic Music Masters Electronic music is one of the largest growing disciplines in the music industry, and this year, Guildhall School announced a new postgraduate Electronic Music degree from September 2020. The one- to twoyear programme will use a practical and project-based approach, giving students a fast-paced and diverse preparation for professional life and offering specialisms in industry growth areas such as film music, game audio, songwriting and production.
Guildhall Session Orchestra
Electronic music students work regularly with the professional musicians of the Guildhall Session Orchestra, an alumni-based ensemble created to perform music produced by the Electronic Music Department. The orchestra gave its inaugural concert of hybrid electro-orchestral music in July 2019, featuring highlights from recent projects including the full soundtrack to the Beasts of London exhibition at the Museum of London (see page 29).
“The emergence of the professional Guildhall Session Orchestra out of our increasing activity in film music, game audio and popular music production is especially exciting, and further sets us apart as offering a unique environment in which to launch successful careers in music.” Mike Roberts, Head of Electronic Music & Music Technology
Distinctive training for world-class artists | 9
Artistic citizenship
At Guildhall School we believe in the power of performing arts to transform people’s lives and enrich the world around us. We instil students with a strong sense of their agency and responsibility as artists, and provide a wealth of opportunities to engage with social issues, to present work in non-traditional settings, and to amplify the voices of marginalised communities. We call this ‘artistic citizenship’. Here, we uncover some of the recent work that students, staff and alumni have undertaken as artistic citizens.
Health and mental health Fundraising
In February 2019, violinist Samuel Staples (BMus Violin) led a fundraising concert for Moorfields Eye Charity, raising £3,500 towards clinical equipment to view detailed images of children’s eyes. Krysia Osostowicz, Professor of Violin, organised concerts in Cornwall in August 2019, raising over £4,000 for Cornwall Red Cross and Invictus Trust, which helps teenagers deal with mental health issues. Mental health – Song in the City
Alumnus Gavin Roberts (Piano Accompaniment 2012), now a Professor in Guildhall’s Vocal Studies Department, founded Song in the City to use the power of song to change people’s lives. Guildhall students have worked with Gavin to devise and perform Creative Madness in Song, a song series based on the poems of mental health service users. Mental health – Sane and Sound
A chamber opera based on real accounts of psychotic illness and mood disorders created by composer and librettist Matthew Geer (BMus Composition), Sane and Sound premiered at the School in spring 2019. Further performances with Guildhall School singers were given as part of summer events for Culture Mile (see page 18), and at Grimeborne, Arcola Theatre’s alternative opera festival.
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Homelessness The Messengers
Bringing together Guildhall musicians and people seeking support from St Mungo’s homeless charity, The Messengers band has had a profound impact on students since its inception in 2013. Under the leadership of Sigrún Sævarsdóttir-Griffiths, Guildhall teacher and alumna of the Creative Entrepreneurs business incubator (see page 30), the band enables people from widely different backgrounds to find shared purpose in making great music together.
“It opened my eyes to a totally different side to performing on the cello. I got a sense of creating something deeply personal and tangible which I only rarely get from my ‘trad’ practice. I totally didn’t expect to get such an amazing experience when I began at Guildhall.” Lucy French (MPerf Cello) on her first experience of playing with The Messengers Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Guildhall musicians have assisted with the Academy’s music group for homeless people for the last five years, becoming an integral and trusted part of the group and sometimes leading workshops. In April 2019, six Guildhall students joined Academy musicians, the Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Southbank Sinfonia and Streetwise Opera to perform an all-night concert of Bryars’ iconic work, Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. Based on the vocal refrain of an unknown homeless man, and performed at Tate Modern, the twelve-hour concert drew an audience of over a thousand people. Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Voices in the Dark
Decoda in primary schools
Prisoners
Migrants and refugees
In an exciting collaboration with the Creative Learning team (see page 24), Guildhall student musicians worked with chamber music collective Decoda to design their own half-hour interactive performances. In March 2019, these were performed to 2,000 children in primary schools across Newham in East London, to introduce chamber music to children who might not otherwise hear it, and inspire their interest in playing an instrument.
Voices in the Dark
The Nucleo Project
This devised theatre piece, inspired by Shakespeare’s explorations of home, refuge and displacement, played at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe as part of Refugee Week in June 2019. Compass Collective, whose Co-Artistic Director Mhairi Gayer (BA Acting) won the Guildhall Gold Medal for Acting in 2018, worked with young people from the British Red Cross Young Refugee Service to devise and perform the show.
During 2018/19, Evangelos Saklaras (BMus Double Bass) volunteered as a music teacher at the Nucleo Project in North Kensington, which uses the pursuit of musical excellence to enrich the lives of children, young people and families. The project is part of the Sistema England charity founded by Julian Lloyd Webber, and is open to every child, free of charge.
Community music with migrants
Musethica
Ruth Dingle (BMus Horn), chose to focus on Community music with migrants: an exploration into the impact of musical style and the role of staff diversity for her research elective study in 2019.
Alicja Kozak (MPerf Cello) and Fanny Fheodoroff (MPerf Violin) took part in the Berlin Musethica International Festival in 2018, joining professional artists and young musicians from across the world to play chamber music in venues such as hospitals, schools and prisons. Fanny also joined a Musethica project in Zaragosa, performing solo and chamber music in community venues.
Sounding Out
In April 2019, a group of BA Performance & Creative Enterprise students worked with artist leaders to create and perform five new pieces of music with service users at Sounding Out, a project which helps people get their lives back on track after release from prison.
Children and young people Wind-Up Penguin Theatre Company
Communities
Many Guildhall students and alumni “This was the most intense, have worked with Wind-Up Penguin, beautiful and rewarding which brings professional-standard original musical theatre to disabled and experience for me. To bring disadvantaged children across the world. people such joy with our music Founded by Guildhall alumni Elisabeth - literally making their day Swedlund (Vocal Studies 2016) and Ioana Macovei-Vlasceanu (Vocal Studies - is deeply fulfilling, and has 2016), Wind-Up Penguin has performed strengthened my will to always in a dozen countries including Romania, keep going.” Mexico, Lebanon and India, and is now Fanny Fheodoroff, describing her developing a programme for the UK. experience of playing with Musethica
Distinctive training for world-class artists | 11
World-class artists
Training at Guildhall challenges students to work to world-class standards and equips them to succeed at the highest levels of their profession. Here, we highlight just some of the success achieved by Guildhall alumni and students in 2018/19. Further listings of the year’s prizes, awards and performances can be found on page 43.
Olivier Awards 2019 The list of Olivier Awards and nominations demonstrates how integral Guildhall graduates are to the London theatre world. •
the Best Actress in a Supporting Role award for her performance in All About Eve at the Noël Coward Theatre, which also starred Guildhall alumna Lily James (Acting 2010).
Drama
Below: Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2016 production. Paapa was the first black actor to play Hamlet at the RSC. He went on to win a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit award in 2018 for his roles in the TV series Press, The Miniaturist, Kiri and Black Earth Rising.
“I’d never really considered drama school and I’d never even heard of Guildhall until I went to see a tiny fringe production of The Tempest. The guy who played Ariel was climbing all over the lighting rig – it was a really physical performance. I thought, wow, that’s the kind of performance I’d like to be able to do. I asked him where he’d been to drama school. He said: ‘Guildhall’.” Paapa Essiedu
Monica Dolan (Acting 1992) won
•
Natasha Gordon (Acting 1999) saw her debut play Nine Night nominated for Best New Comedy.
•
Marcello Cruz (Acting 2016) starred in Wider Earth, and was nominated in the Best Entertainment and Family category.
•
Neil Austin (Technical Theatre 1992) was nominated in the Best Lighting Design category for his work on Company.
•
Eileen Atkins’ (Acting 1953) performance in The Height of the Storm saw her nominated in the Best Actress category.
•
Simon Russell Beale (Acting 1983) and Ben Miles (Acting 1988) were
nominated in the Best Actor category alongside The Lehman Trilogy co-star Adam Godley. •
Tom Curran (Composition 2014) was nominated alongside Toby Marlow, Lucy Moss, and Joe Beighton in the Outstanding Achievement in Music category for the original score, orchestration and vocal arrangements for Six.
•
Roderick Williams (Opera Studies
1995) and David Butt Philip were nominated in the Outstanding Achievement in Opera category for their performances in War Requiem at English National Opera.
12 | Distinctive training for world-class artists
Guildhall drama productions: critical acclaim
Production Arts awards 2018/19
October 2018: Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley
Production Arts students and alumni have garnered major awards and assignments during the year. •
Ben Cook (Technical Theatre
2018) won the Stage Management Association Student of the Year Award and was appointed Deputy Stage Manager at English National Opera.
The Vanstone Scholarship In autumn 2018, we were delighted to announce the Vanstone Scholarship, to support a Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) student on the BA Production Arts programme from 2020/21. Guildhall alumnus Hugh Vanstone, one of the UK’s foremost lighting designers, is passionate about the aim of the scholarship: by giving to Guildhall, he wants to address the lack of diversity in the creative and cultural sectors, particularly in production arts. The School is immensely grateful to Hugh and to all of our supporters.
•
Neil Austin (Technical Theatre 1992)
was awarded the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play for Ink on Broadway.
“These talented students boast more potential than you could shake a post-apocalyptic hallucinogenic butterfly at.” ****
•
Charlie Smith (Technical Theatre 2013) was the Associate Sound Designer for Six, which was shortlisted for Best New Musical at the Olivier Awards.
•
Luke Swaffield (Technical Theatre
2008) was a finalist at the OffWestEnd Theatre Awards (the Offies) in the Sound Design category for Forgotten at the Arcola Theatre.
The Upcoming July 2019: Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim •
Rory Beaton (Technical Theatre 2016)
was shortlisted for the Knight of Illumination Award for Opera for Così fan tutte with Opera Holland Park.
“The arts are for everybody. We need to break down the invisible barriers which disadvantage those from ethnic minorities.” Hugh Vanstone For more information on Guildhall’s supporters, see page 35.
“As ‘Our Time’ says ‘here’s what’s happening/we’re what’s happening/we’re the movers, we’re the shapers/we’re the names in tomorrow’s papers’. Sondheim might just as well have been writing about Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s abundant talents about to be launched on to the waiting world.” **** Musical Theatre Review
Distinctive training for world-class artists | 13
Music and opera
Above: in April 2019, alumna Tasmin Little Above: Claire Barnett-Jones (Artist Diploma
Vocal Studies) sings at the ‘s-Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition in September 2018, for which she won the Wagner Prize for a young singer of dramatic potential and the Junior Jury Prize. In April 2019, Claire was selected to compete in the Operalia competition, founded by Plácido Domingo to help launch the careers of the most promising young opera singers worldwide, and in September 2019 she was chosen as one of English National Opera’s new Harewood Artists. In November 2019, Claire won second prize at the Grange Festival International Singing Competition, including an offer of a role at the festival, as well as the Waynflete Singers Prize for a concert, and the Villa Medici Prize to perform a recital in Milan.
Above: Australian pianist Kathy Chow
(Artist Diploma Piano) won first prize in the Birmingham International Piano Competition in 2018 and the Phillip Crawshaw Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Musician from Overseas at the 2019 Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. She has been invited back to Birmingham Town Hall to play a solo recital in April 2020.
“I treasure the connection I feel when I listen to, or play music; it has become my way of communicating with people.” Kathy Chow
(Violin 1986; Guildhall Fellow 1998) was named BBC Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year. She announced her retirement in early 2019, and the award recognises her contribution to classical music over the course of her career. Tasmin won the Guildhall Gold Medal for Music in 1986, and returned to the School in 2014 to present the Gold Medal to cellist Michael Petrov, who will release his debut CD in 2020.
Music and opera awards highlights 2018/19 •
The Mithras Trio won the Cavatina Intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition, first prize in the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award and the Strings and Piano Ensemble Section Prize in the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. The trio consists of Ionel Manciu (Artist Diploma Violin), Leo Popplewell (MMus Cello) and Dominic Degavino (MMus Piano).
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Stephen Barlow (Music 1976) was nominated for a UK Theatre Award in the Achievement in Opera category for the Buxton International Festival.
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Dinis Sousa (Piano 2014) has been appointed as the first ever Assistant Conductor to Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras.
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Natalya Romaniw (Opera Studies 2011) made her ENO debut as Mimì in the fourth revival of Jonathan Miller’s production of La bohème.
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The Barbican Quartet, comprising Amarins Wierdsma (Violin 2017), Tim Crawford (Violin 2017), Christoph Slenczka (Viola 2016) and Yoanna Prodanova (Cello 2018), won the International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition.
See page 43 for further listings of Guildhall prizes and productions during the year.
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“No indulgences needed to be made for the students of the Guildhall School ... They slotted seamlessly within the ranks of the LSO to conjure a luminous halo of string sound.” *****
Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Arts Desk
In the spotlight: Guildhall repetiteurs This was an excellent year for Guildhall repetiteurs, both current students and alumni. We are extremely proud that every young artist repetiteur position in the UK is occupied by a recent Guildhall graduate. •
The Royal Opera House Jette Parker Young Artist programme will see alumni Edmund Whitehead (Repetiteur 2015) and Patrick Milne (Piano Accompaniment 2017) continue as the Opera Conductors and Repetiteurs on the programme.
•
The National Opera Studio Young Artists for 2019/20 include Mairi Harris Grewar (Repetiteur 2018).
•
Michael Papadopoulos (Repetiteur 2017) joins Scottish Opera as an Emerging Artist repetiteur, while Nathan Harris (Repetiteur 2018) will join English National Opera as the new trainee repetiteur and Michael Pandya (Artist Diploma Piano Accompaniment) follows in Nathan’s footsteps, taking over as repetiteur at the Bavarian State Opera Young Artist programme.
Guildhall music and opera productions: critical acclaim November 2018 Mozart, Così fan tutte
“You can never say too often how worthwhile (and affordable) these polished conservatoire productions are, with singers poised for big careers and talents to spot … Book early. They sell out.” The Observer March 2019 Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“… far and away the finest of many productions of this opera this reviewer has seen.” *****
See page 43 for further listings of Guildhall prizes and productions during the year.
Tim Hochstrasser, Plays to See June 2019 LSO and Guildhall School Side-by-Side
Described by its conductor Sir Simon Rattle as “a massive concert with a massive orchestra”, Guildhall School’s side-byside with London Symphony Orchestra this year combined Bruckner’s masterful Symphony No 4 with Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy.
Distinctive training for world-class artists | 15
Strong bonds at the heart of the City
16 | Distinctive training for world-class artists
Partnerships
Partnership and collaboration are central to Guildhall School’s approach to learning and to our organisational development. We enjoy robust core partnerships with five key organisations, and collaborative links with many more. Our partnerships have been significantly strengthened in 2018/19, not least through joint working to develop Culture Mile, a major destination for culture, creativity and learning in the City of London, and through our collaborative alliance with partners working in China.
Centre for Music In January 2019, the Barbican, London Symphony Orchestra and Guildhall School released concept designs for a visionary project to create the Centre for Music, a world-class venue for performance and education to inspire a new generation with a love of music. The designs, developed by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, demonstrate the potential to deliver this landmark new building on the current site of the Museum of London. The Centre for Music would include a 2,000 seat concert hall built for the digital age and superb spaces for performance, rehearsal and music education. It would also be home to the planned Institute for Social Impact, run by Guildhall and dedicated to exploring and promoting the powerful ways in which music can contribute to positive social change.
Collaboration in China In 2018/19 Guildhall conducted the third year of the globally collaborative Performing Arts Skills Exchange (PASE) programme in Shanghai. Continuing our work in partnership with the Royal Opera House, Central Academy of Drama, Beijing and the Shanghai Grand Theatre Arts Group, PASE has been a successful, influential programme to share and develop skills in production arts in China. Leading the project from an education perspective, Guildhall has worked collaboratively with performing arts organisations including the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Sadler’s Wells, the China National Centre for Performing Arts and the National Theatre of China. We are grateful to Arts Council England, the British Council, the Chinese Ministry of Culture and the China National Arts Fund for their investment in this exciting crosscultural programme.
Centre for Music Concert Hall
A detailed business case for the Centre for Music, supported by funding of £2.49 million from the City of London Corporation, was delivered in December “The proposed Centre for Music 2018. In June 2019, the Arts and would be a landmark building Humanities Research Council awarded in the City’s emerging Culture a major grant for an international Mile, and could arguably consortium, led by Guildhall Research Professor John Sloboda, to investigate become regarded as the envy of the social impact of making music and the international arts, music help lay the research foundations for the Institute (see page 27). Next steps for the and educational community.” Centre for Music include development Catherine McGuinness, Policy Chair, of detailed plans for design, fundraising, City of London Corporation business modelling and capital funding. centreformusic.culturemile.london
Left: concept design for the Centre for Music Entry Plaza, courtesy of architects Diller Scofidio +
Renfro. The building would be the new home of the London Symphony Orchestra and the base for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s planned Institute for Social Impact.
Strong bonds at the heart of the City | 17
17
new artistic commissions to Guildhall students for Culture Mile events
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Culture Mile This year the School’s involvement in Culture Mile has flourished, with innovative sessions to support local creative enterprise, and events enabling students to perform in exciting local spaces. culturemile.london Sane and Sound
digital commission enabled artists to create geo-targeted tracks which visitors could download as they explored specific locations in the City. Guildhall’s EMS Collective, an ensemble of musicians and composers connected to the School’s Electronic Music Studios, created music in response to Smithfield Rotunda Garden, once a grim place of public execution but now a pretty, peaceful circular park. Culture Mile EXCHANGE: in July
students and alumni took part in Culture Mile performances
and August 2019, Guildhall’s Creative Entrepreneurs business incubator (see page 30) partnered with the City Business Library and Culture Mile to curate a series of free sessions to introduce the support available to local cultural, creative and digital businesses, and to broaden the range of potential partners for future projects.
8,700 people saw Culture Mile performances involving Guildhall students
Musicity x Culture Mile: this exciting
Play the Mile: this major summer
season events programme featured many student-led performances. St Alphage’s church was the venue for glockenspiel compositions and for Sane and Sound, a new opera based on lived experience of mental illness (see page 10). A sound bath soothed visitors at St Bartholomew the Less. These Wondering Stones, an operatic adventure in promenade from alumna Anna Poole (Composition 2015) brought alive the history of Smithfield through the stories of Londoners who have lived and worked there.
Community Days
Community Days: two festive days to
celebrate the irrepressible community spirit within Culture Mile were held during the year. Based in LSO St Luke’s, Guildhall students created an interactive poetry workshop for young people and presented a wide range of musical performance including a jazz band, solo harp, solo guitar and a soprano trio.
18 | Strong bonds at the heart of the City
Barbican Our creative alliance with the Barbican is a unique arts and learning collaboration between a leading international arts centre and a worldclass conservatoire, spanning creative and artistic output as well as operational efficiencies and joint ways of working. On the artistic side, an exciting year of joint programming in Milton Court included a side-by-side with Guildhall musicians and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, led by their dynamic Artistic Director Richard Tognetti. In the Barbican Cinemas, Guildhall musicians performed live jazz to accompany seminal works of silent film. The School’s Creative Entrepreneurs scheme collaborated with the Barbican’s Young Enterprise Lab for this year’s Big Pitch event (see page 30). Creative Learning, the joint learning and participation department for the School and the Barbican, had a hugely successful year, reaching over 22,000 participants (see page 24). Behind the scenes, the merger of the Barbican and Guildhall’s IT departments led to an injection of investment in the School’s technology infrastructure, making a major contribution to the progress of our digital strategy (see page 34).
London Symphony Orchestra
Royal Opera House
Guildhall School musicians continued to benefit from the School’s rich and longstanding relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra. Collaborations involving Guildhall musicians included eleven LSO Platforms concerts on the Barbican stage, performing complementary repertoire before LSO concerts; a selection of LSO Discovery concerts, including a relaxed performance for people with additional needs, and joining musicians from the LSO and LSO On Track at the annual free Trafalgar Square concert conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. In June, Sir Simon gathered a huge orchestra of LSO and Guildhall musicians to perform works by Vaughan Williams, Grainger and Bruckner. The concert was highly acclaimed, including a five-star review from The Arts Desk (see page 15).
BBC Symphony Orchestra The School’s involvement in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Total Immersion days continued this year, with students presenting concerts focused on the works of Ligeti and Lili and Nadia Boulanger, as well as a chamber music concert for In Remembrance World War I. Opera Makers
Performed by singers and repetiteurs from the first year of the Opera Course, Opera Makers is an annual production featuring new music written by composers and librettists on the MA in Opera Making & Writing programme, delivered in association with the Royal Opera House. This year, three new opera works were developed and performed with an orchestral ensemble (see page 49).
Further partners École des Écoles: the School has
been engaged in a two-year Erasmus Strategic Partnership project with several other drama schools in the École des Écoles network, exploring Artistic Entrepreneurship in Theatre Higher Education. The results will be shared in 2019/20. Wigmore Hall: this year’s Guildhall
Wigmore Recital Prize, judged by a selection of Guildhall and Wigmore Hall staff, was won by mezzo soprano Ema Nikolovska (MMus Opera Studies), who delivered her winner’s recital at the iconic venue in May 2019. Other Guildhall performances at Wigmore Hall included Voiceworks, where singers and instrumentalists presented the vocal music of Judith Weir alongside new works for voice written by Guildhall composers, and the Nicholas Daniel Oboe Day, where Guildhall wind players joined Nicholas Daniel and other professors on the stage. Academy of Ancient Music: musicians from the Historical Performance Department performed side-by-side with regular collaborators the Academy of Ancient Music in a programme at the Deal Music and Arts Festival in July. Museum of London: for the first time in the School’s history, staff and students from across the School partnered with the Museum of London to deliver the immersive experience, Beasts of London (see page 29).
Strong bonds at the heart of the City | 19
Helping young artists find their creative voice
20 | Helping young artists find their creative voice
Children and young people
Guildhall School is the UK’s leading provider of specialist arts training at the under-18 level, with nearly 1,400 students in Junior Guildhall and the Centre for Young Musicians. In 2018/19 we concluded a comprehensive review of our under-18 offer and developed exciting new plans for closer collaboration with partners to deliver arts education, exemplified in the successful alliance with Islington Council to deliver a new model of music education across the borough.
£140k
towards under-18 tuition fees for young people from low income or under-represented groups
10
students progressed from Junior Guildhall to the BMus programme at Guildhall School
418
students accessed regional Centres for Young Musicians
Music Education Islington In September 2018, we were proud to launch the first ever UK partnership between a local authority and an internationally renowned conservatoire to provide music education. Music Education Islington, delivered in a creative alliance between Islington Council and Guildhall, will give every child in the London borough aged 5 to 18 regular opportunities to sing, learn a musical instrument and play in ensembles. It will also offer training for music teachers and freelancers in local schools, an instrument loan service, and access to music and cross-arts experiences at Guildhall and the Barbican. This pioneering project is part of the national Music Education
Guildhall Young Artists Islington As part of Music Education Islington (see below), Guildhall Young Artists Islington is an ambitious project in specific primary schools to improve standards in music-making and remove barriers that prevent disadvantaged pupils from taking part. Led by a team of Guildhall teachers and artists, the project offers 30 affordable after school sessions a year in group instrumental tuition, choir and ensemble, culminating in a performance for families and the wider community at the end of each term. Within a year of its inception in September 2018, Guildhall Young Artists Islington grew from 44 pupils at eight primary schools to over 100 at twelve schools. The reach of the project also extended to involve teaching assistants, parents and carers in choir singing, as well as Young Music Ambassadors from secondary schools to support younger pupils and act as role models. In January 2019, seven recent Guildhall graduates joined the project’s staff. In June 2019, the end of year concert involved every child in Guildhall Young Artists Islington playing together as an orchestra for the first time. Project staff went on to lead the first ever Islington Music Camp for 7- to 15-year-olds at the end of July.
Hubs programme funded by the Department for Education through Arts Council England.
“This is such an exciting opportunity to develop a new model for music education and aligns with the School’s vision to help young people find their creative voice. This pioneering cultural alliance creates transformative opportunities and will help to equip the talent of the next generation.” Sean Gregory, Director of Learning & Engagement for Guildhall School and the Barbican
Helping young artists find their creative voice | 21
Leverhulme Arts Scholarships In January 2019, we were delighted to announce the grant of up to £490,000 for Leverhulme Arts Scholarships over the next three years. This includes scholarship support for students at Junior Guildhall and Centre for Young Musicians and for undergraduate and postgraduate music and production arts students. This valued funding will make a profound positive impact on ensuring that the most talented students can take up their places, regardless of background.
Above: in June 2019, 12-year-old Junior
Guildhall violinist Leia Zhu made history by becoming the youngest violinist to perform a concerto with the world-famous Mariinsky Orchestra in St Petersburg. Following this exceptional achievement, Leia will make her UK professional debut with the English Chamber Orchestra in February 2020.
Junior Guildhall Junior Guildhall is a specialist Saturday School offering advanced training to young people aged 4 to 18. Students receive professional music and drama tuition and often go on to study music at undergraduate level. In 2018/19, ten Junior Guildhall students progressed to Guildhall’s classical or jazz BMus courses, and twelve were selected for the 2018/19 National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Six students (including Leia Zhu, see above) were among finalists and prize winners in international competitions.
Above: in March 2019, the Junior Guildhall
Symphony Orchestra joined members of the Junior Guildhall Drama Department to perform extracts from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in Milton Court Concert Hall. The performance received high praise for the emotion and imagination shown by musicians and cast.
22 | Helping young artists find their creative voice
“We are determined that no student should face financial barriers to studying at Guildhall, and we can only achieve that with the generous support of our donors, including the Leverhulme Trust whose commitment to performing arts training is so evident. We are truly grateful for their support.” Lynne Williams am, Principal For more information on Guildhall’s supporters, see page 35.
Above: Big Gig 2019 was part of the Barbican’s
Sound Unbound weekend in May 2019, drawing together 120 players of all instruments and across all ages and playing levels, including the Junior Guildhall Wind Orchestra. The project was conceived and led by Junior Guildhall staff Spencer Down and Rob Farrer together with Lincoln Abbots, Executive Director: Strategic Development for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM).
London Schools Symphony Orchestra
CYM London
In 2018/19, 136 pupils from greater London played in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, which is managed by CYM London (see left). Of these, 68 members received some form of bursary support, which is vital to ensuring that entrance to the orchestra is based on merit alone. In September, the orchestra’s 2018/19 season culminated in a performance at the Barbican staged in collaboration with Birmingham Royal Ballet and narrated by Simon Callow. Dancers from Elmhurst Ballet School performed as the orchestra played Dvořák’s Scherzo Capriccioso, Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem and Eleanor Alberga’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, conducted by Peter Ash.
Centre for Young Musicians Centre for Young Musicians (CYM) provides high quality progressive music training for over 800 talented children and young people at centres in London, Norwich, Peterborough, Saffron Walden and Taunton. Students follow individual programmes of study across a range of genres from jazz to gamelan, and many create their own music and songs. This year, CYM London grade exam results were significantly above the national average, and London students took part in workshops and recitals with a wide range of visiting artists, including a collaboration with international musicians through the European Concert Halls Organisation (ECHO). In the regions, where some students travel more than 50 miles to attend CYM, we reached students from 233 schools in 2018/19, nearly 30% of whom came from areas where young people are less likely to access higher education. Eight CYM regional students were accepted for undergraduate music courses at a UK university or conservatoire. We are especially proud that CYM Taunton won the Creative Industries Award sponsored by Arts Taunton at the Taunton Deane Business Awards 2019.
Engaging young people in North East England As part of our evolving Access and Participation Plan (see page 34), in April 2019 a ten-piece Guildhall undergraduate brass ensemble visited Sage Gateshead music centre, having worked with School staff to identify access objectives and evaluation measures for their trip. The visit included performances and Q&A and workshop sessions for the Young Musicians programme at Sage Gateshead. Eligible participants in the programme can be considered for all Access and Participation support available from Guildhall, to build on our emerging relationship with Sage Gateshead.
Helping young artists find their creative voice | 23
Creative Learning
22,784 direct participants in Creative Learning programmes
Creative Learning is a pioneering creative alliance between Guildhall School and the Barbican, designed to transform 21st century learning by giving people of all ages and backgrounds access to world-class arts. 2018/19 has been a year of real achievement for Creative Learning, with record audiences, a National Creative Learning Award and successful bids to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, National Heritage Lottery Fund and the Edge Foundation to develop our work with schools, communities and young people.
Schools National Creative Learning Award:
in March 2019, we were extremely proud that Creative Learning won the SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) Achievement Award at the National Creative Learning Awards for our work with The Garden School in Hackney, a school for learners with autism aged 4 to16.
Families Squish Space: October 2018 saw the launch of Squish Space, a sensory interactive play space in the Barbican designed to spark creative play for children under five and their families. Devised by artists and playworkers, Squish Space received 10,000 visitors in its first 100 days, and exemplifies our approach to active learning, enabling children and families to follow their creativity and curiosity.
The Garden School
“Disabled young people and children are often only engaged in music for therapy and passive learning, but this programme to tailor-make learning to the individual’s potential and learning style is much needed for future change and levelling equality of opportunity for all.” Canon Ruth Gould MBE, judge for the National Creative Learning Awards
Squish Space
Communities Converging Dialogue: in February 2019, around 150 people attended Converging Dialogue at Chats Palace in Hackney to explore what it means to be human in a technological age. Students and staff from Guildhall’s recent MMus Leadership programme conceived and delivered the event, which included a showcase for devised poetry and music, in collaboration with local community groups.
Barbican Box: almost a thousand students across London and Greater Manchester participated in Creative Learning’s flagship schools programme, Barbican Box, this year. Artist partners included award-winning theatre company, Slung Low; grime artist Swifta Beater; artist collective One Of My Kind (OOMK), and poet and author Michael Rosen.
Converging Dialogue
24 | Helping young artists find their creative voice
Showcase weekends for the Young Visual Arts Group and the Young Curators reached over a thousand people in the spring and summer of 2019. Design Yourself, a collective of young digital artists, worked with new media artist Antonio Roberts throughout the year to create work responding to the Barbican’s annual cross-arts season, Life Rewired. The Chronic Youth festival, curated entirely by the Young Programmers, included UK premieres, Q&As and an open submission film shorts programme.
NOYO
Emerging and practising artists BA in Performance & Creative Enterprise (PACE): we were delighted
Young creatives National Open Youth Orchestra London: in November 2018, we were
delighted to launch the first ensemble session for six musicians at the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO) London Training Centre. The Training Centre is one of just three in the UK to support disabled young musicians to develop their potential. noyo.org.uk Future Band: the Future Band creative
and collaborative music ensemble for 8- to 14-year-olds ran twice over the academic year, culminating in a showcase of new music devised by participants and led by Guildhall School tutors with guest artist, sound and instrument designer Lia Mice. (Im)Possibilities: youth ensemble (Im)Possibilities, a collaborative project run by the Barbican, Guildhall and Serious, rehearsed regularly throughout autumn 2018, concluding with a London Jazz Festival performance at the Southbank Centre.
to celebrate the graduation of four students from the first cohort of BA PACE in November 2018. One of the graduates, Joshua Judson, achieved first class honours and was awarded the inaugural Barbican Prize, which has been established in recognition of our growing collaboration with the Barbican Centre. Enterprising Adventures: artist Iris Musel and ex-Guildhall musician turned neuroscientist Felix Jozsa worked with BA PACE students and tutors on Enterprising Adventures, a project exploring collaborative approaches in arts and neuroscience which formed part of the Barbican’s Life Rewired season and culminating in a showcase at Barts Pathology Museum in March 2019. Weekend Labs: Creative Learning ran six intensive Weekend Labs in 2018/19 with a range of artists including Katie Mitchell, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ursula Martinez and Cheek by Jowl, reaching over 100 practising artists. Other Creative Learning events and projects during the year included work with Decoda in primary schools (see page 11).
Talent development programmes:
in 2018/19, Creative Learning reached over a hundred participants in our talent development programmes. Our Young Poets ensemble celebrated its tenth birthday by hosting a cross-arts exhibition, Constructing Voices, in the Barbican Library, and were hugely proud when former member Theresa Lola was named Young People’s Laureate for London in April 2019. Helping young artists find their creative voice | 25
Leading positive cultural change
26 | Helping young artists find their creative voice
Research
Research at Guildhall covers the spectrum of disciplines and practices within music and drama, and the connections between them. Our doctorate and PhD students and our Research staff share a commitment to exploring the role of the arts practitioner in society, with an increasing focus on the personal and social impact of the arts.
Social impact of music-making
60
PhD students
7
new research partnerships (six of them international)
£35k
from Guildhall Innovation Fund for research projects initiated by staff Finding a Voice
In June 2019, Guildhall announced funding of £984,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council - our largest research grant to date - to lead an international consortium in a three-year investigation into the social impact of making music. Music for social impact: practitioners’ contexts, work and beliefs, led by Guildhall Research Professor John Sloboda, will examine the growing number of Socially Impactful Music Making (SIMM) activities around the world, and how making music with people affected by poverty, conflict or disruption, or who are homeless or in prison, can help to support social goals such as inclusion, empowerment and community-building. Through in-depth interviews and case studies across the UK, Belgium, Finland and Colombia, the project seeks to identity the characteristics of SIMM practitioners, explore the impact of their work and factors which affect it, and
provide insights to improve training, commissioning and best practice. This research will be a flagship project of Guildhall’s new Institute for Social Impact, expected to launch in 2020.
Finding a Voice The final event in Finding a Voice, a 33-month project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, took place in June 2019. Finding a Voice explored the journeys that adult non-singers take in learning to sing, and the ways in which they can be supported. The project’s Principal Investigators were Guildhall Research Fellow Dr Karen Wise and Dr Andrea Halpern, Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania. In June, around 60 international delegates met for the concluding conference for Finding a Voice, which ended with a performance by seven participants who learnt to sing during the project. Two years after their involvement in the project ended, most of the original 20 non-singing participants in the study take part in choral societies including the LSO Community Choir, or sing for their own pleasure.
“Four of us standing here, five of us, all go to the London Symphony Orchestra Community Choir and a number of us are also in other choirs in addition to that, so it’s fundamentally changed the way we all live our lives now and we’re all very, very grateful.” Finding a Voice study participant
Leading positive cultural change | 27
Guildhall Live Events
Guildhall Live Events is a growing business unit within the School which creates immersive and interactive digital experiences – from the intimate to the spectacular – for events ranging from outdoor festivals to product launches, exhibitions and touring theatre. Using state of the art expertise and technologies for video projections and virtual reality, Guildhall Live Events adds new dimensions to audience experience, and the team is currently exploring how technology can be used to document artistic output in innovative ways.
Waddesdon Christmas Carnival
LightPool Festival: Light Odyssey
A Day of Kites and Lights: Windrush Day 2019
In October 2018, BA Video Design for Live Performance students were involved in Light Odyssey, “an epic journey of light, space and sound”. The students created 3D animations to transform the opulent interior of Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, and assisted QED Productions with technical delivery of the show.
A Day of Kites and Lights in June 2019 marked the close of Windrush Day, to commemorate the first generation of people from the Caribbean who helped rebuild Britain after World War II. In partnership with Haringey Archive Service, a team from Guildhall Live Events projected images onto the historic building of Bruce Castle in Tottenham as part of community celebrations.
“Stunning in design and colour the panoply of images swept across the immense space, sometimes matching the tempi and dynamic of the music and often just the mood.” Seen and Heard International Waddesdon Christmas Carnival
28 | Leading positive cultural change
From November 2018 to January 2019, Guildhall artists and video designers were involved in the second of their collaborations with Waddesdon Christmas Carnival at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. Installations included projections on the façade of the Manor’s 19th century stables, a custom-built sculptural light tunnel and an ambitious audio trail featuring 13 character silhouettes inspired by the Manor’s collection.
The Beasts of Bartholomew Fair Part of Culture Mile’s Smithfield Street Party in August 2019, The Beasts of Bartholomew Fair was a virtual reality installation created by Guildhall Live Events which invited audiences to an animal tea party, set to a Guildhall School score, to tell a fictional tale celebrating the animal past of Smithfield market.
Teams platform: quickfire collaboration As part of Guildhall’s digital strategy (see page 34) we have introduced the Microsoft Teams platform, which enables rapid online dialogue, collaboration and file-sharing. In 2018/19, Teams was used in over half of Guildhall productions, and has made a huge contribution to efficiency, enabling student and staff teams in fastmoving projects to share instant dialogue and information as the event or production moves ahead.
Beasts of London
Beasts of London
“A snarling lion; a sinuous fox; a squawking pigeon; a skittering rat. These are just some of the beasts who come vividly to life in this crazily enjoyable new exhibition.” ****
Inspired by artefacts in the Museum of London’s collection and created by Guildhall Live Events in collaboration with over 100 Guildhall students and graduates, Beasts of London tells the story of how animals have helped to The Telegraph shape the capital through the centuries. This ambitious multimedia installation crosses numerous disciplines including “A whole succession of creatures intricate set and lighting design, provide an engaging way in to video projection mapping, voice-over London’s history.” **** narration, composition of an orchestral underscore recorded by Guildhall Session Evening Standard Orchestra (see page 9), stage management and production management. Running at the Museum of London from April 2019 to February 2020, Beasts of London transports audiences to nine different moments in London’s history, as witnessed by animals ranging from lions at the Roman amphitheatre to pigeons in Trafalgar Square today. Animal characters were voiced by Guildhall acting students alongside celebrities including Brian Blessed as the bacterium responsible for the Great Plague of London, Stephen Mangan as Henry VIII’s horse, and Kate Moss as Foxy, one of the remaining wild beasts in modern London. Over 56,000 tickets to the exhibition were sold between April and mid-November 2019.
“… there are plenty of interactive elements for younger kids to enjoy. Older ones will get the kind of history lesson they love: at times emotional, at times gruesome, and always riveting.” **** Culture Whisper The Beasts of Bartholomew Fair and Beasts of London were both produced as part of Culture Mile activity. For further Culture Mile events, see page 18.
museumoflondon.org.uk
Leading positive cultural change | 29
Creative Entrepreneurs
39
performing arts businesses supported by Creative Entrepreneurs since it launched in 2013
Guildhall Creative Entrepreneurs is a ten-month incubator which helps emerging entrepreneurs in the performing arts to launch and advance their own businesses. The scheme provides bespoke mentoring and coaching in business planning, marketing, sales and fundraising, and access to public pitching opportunities. Delivered in partnership with award-wining social enterprise Cause4, Guildhall Creative Entrepreneurs is the only incubator in the UK dedicated specifically to the performing arts.
Creative Entrepreneurs: 2018/19 cohort In 2018, Guildhall welcomed the latest cohort of Creative Entrepreneurs: MetamorPhonics create unique,
inclusive environments for musicmaking with students in higher education and people with lived experience of homelessness. Walthamstow Garden Party is a
free two-day festival in Lloyd Park, Walthamstow, which attracted 35,000 visitors in July 2019. mushRoom is an online marketplace
which enables people to rent out their spare music spaces to musicians and take part in music and arts events. SON makes theatre that focusses on cross-discipline collaboration, using research and improvisation to pursue new performance territories.
“It was a wonderful learning curve that has helped me further understand myself, the work I make and how to get it made.” Creative Entrepreneurs participant
30 | Leading positive cultural change
Celestina Rowaiye, Young Enterprise Lab entrepreneur, at Big Pitch 2019
Big Pitch 2019 The Big Pitch is the culmination of the Creative Entrepreneurs scheme, giving the cohort a platform to pitch to a panel of judges for two awards providing a total of £6,000 in vital seed-funding for their businesses. The second annual Big Pitch in June 2019 was again compered by celebrated entrepreneur Dr Maggie Semple OBE, who was joined by a judging panel of industry experts: founding corporate partner Eversheds Sutherland; the City Business Library; Creative Entrepreneurs alumnus Mark Llewelyn Evans, and the Guild of Entrepreneurs, who will provide a full bursary place for the Creative Entrepreneurs programme from 2019/20. The judges awarded first prize to MetamorPhonics, with mushRoom taking second prize. Pitchers from the Barbican Guildhall Young Enterprise Lab (see below) also pitched for their own £2,000 award.
Creative Careers/Young Enterprise Lab Creative Entrepreneurs alumni contributed to Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning’s Creative Careers programme, delivering a series of sessions in spring 2019 to help young people explore and develop their enterprise skills. The Creative Learning team worked with consultant and mentor Joseph Gray to pilot a new Young Enterprise Lab pathway alongside these events, guiding a group of young creatives to hone and develop ideas for business enterprises and to explore pathways to formal training. Three enterprises from the Young Enterprise Lab have joined the 2019/20 cohort of Creative Entrepreneurs, including the 2018 Young Entrepreneurs’ Prize winner Naomi Grant, whose award-winning production company LAMBB seeks to redefine images of black and brown people in the media.
Open Programmes
750
participants from 50 countries in Open Programmes courses, aged from 3- to 65-years-old
£323k raised from fees for Open Programme courses
44
bursaries for short course participants under the Assisted Places Scheme
Open Programmes open up the world of the conservatoire to people outside of formal learning. Through short courses, training for professional development and summer schools, we enable wide participation in worldclass arts education – and also raise significant income for the School. New courses: in 2018/19 we introduced three new evening courses, and offered Essential Music Theory as a short course at Easter for the first time. We also added two new summer courses, including Music Production for Girls, a sell-out course which generated interest in studying electronic music on the School’s BMus programme. Adult courses: Introduction to
Music Therapy sold out this year, and generated strong interest in the School’s MA in Music Therapy. The success of Musicianship for Children and their Parents demonstrated growing demand for family-focused learning; other growth audiences include adult leisure learners, professionals and adult singers. Short courses and summer schools:
summer schools generated £207,000 in income during the year, and along with short courses, provided employment for 20 Guildhall students, 75 staff and 62 visiting lecturers and artists.
Coaching and mentoring
350% increase in income from coaching and mentoring
100%
of delegates on coaching and mentoring courses would recommend them to others
The Guildhall Coaching and Mentoring programme is the only faculty for executive coaching and mentoring offered by an international conservatoire. The programme provides coaching, training and leadership development to clients ranging from performers to teachers, entrepreneurs and policymakers, and this year we added private and charity sector clients through a partnership with the City of London Corporation.
Assisted Places Scheme In spring and summer 2019, 44 bursaries were awarded through our Assisted Places Scheme, enabling young people from low income households to join our short courses and summer schools. We are pleased that this year, the majority of recipients have maintained contact with Guildhall and will continue to receive Access and Participation support, including free tickets for concerts and free applications to undergraduate programmes. A further £140,000 in tuition fee support was awarded to promising young musicians participating in Junior Guildhall and Centre for Young Musicians locations across the UK.
The programme grew dramatically in 2018/19, with a 350% increase in income, and delivery of training to School staff valued at £35,000. One hundred per cent of course delegates said they would recommend our courses, and we were invited to present at a range of international conferences. The programme also achieved a major milestone by gaining accreditation for its professional level training in coaching skills from the European Mentoring & Coaching Council, with feedback that our application was “outstanding”.
“I was blown away. It was really incredible how the work you did was so relevant to executive coaching and how terrific it was to bring something so creative into the room.” Tracey Smith, Team Management Specialist, TMS Development International Leading positive cultural change | 31
Fit for the 21st century
32 | Leading positive cultural change
Staff and faculty
The professional experience of teaching staff at Guildhall combines expert insight into craft training, an acute awareness of how to develop young artists, and a collaborative ensemble ethic. Deep understanding of performing arts practice is matched by dedication to excellence in higher education: over 80 members of staff are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), demonstrating personal and institutional commitment to professionalism in higher education.
Staff appointments Peter Moore
Charlie Morgan, Associate Head of Vocal Studies (Movement): a
graduate of the specialist programme for movement teachers at Guildhall, and a movement director specialising in period dance, Charlie has taught at the School for a number of years. In autumn 2018, she joined the Vocal Studies Department to lead on movement training and to develop students’ health, fitness and wellbeing. John Ramster, Associate Head of Vocal Studies (Drama): with a wealth
of experience at Glyndebourne Festival and the Royal Academy of Music, John has directed and taught drama for opera singers at Guildhall over many years. From autumn 2018, he joined the School as Associate Head of Vocal Studies (Drama), where he will lead on drama across the Vocal Studies Department. Brodie Ross
Peter Moore, Professor of Trombone:
Global influence In keeping with the School’s global reputation in arts higher education, Guildhall staff continued to share their talents abroad during the year. From opera training in Israel to keyboard teaching in Tokyo, acting in Sao Paolo to production management in Shanghai, Guildhall’s academic staff have delivered training and masterclasses, attended conferences and built and maintained relationships with leading global institutions. The School has also continued its commitment to reaching out to international students by offering in-country auditions in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul.
a leading international trombone soloist, Peter was appointed Professor of Trombone at Guildhall from autumn 2019. The youngest ever winner of the BBC Young Musician competition at the age of twelve and co-principal trombone of the London Symphony Orchestra at the age of 18, Peter has given recitals at major international venues and appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras around the world.
“I’m excited to get started in my new role at Guildhall School. There is a huge wealth of talent and a great spirit within the Brass Department.” Peter Moore, Professor of Trombone
Brodie Ross, Head of Acting: a distinguished actor whose career includes performing in the West End and at Shakespeare’s Globe, the RSC, the Almeida Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange and Sheffield Theatres, Brodie was appointed Head of Acting in June 2019. He will work under the leadership of Vice Principal & Director of Drama, Orla O’Loughlin. His industry knowledge will develop new connections between Guildhall’s Acting programme and the creative industries.
Simon Purcell, International Chair in Improvisation: one of Britain’s
most accomplished contemporary jazz pianists, Simon returned to Guildhall as International Chair in Improvisation from autumn 2018, having served as Professor of Jazz Improvisation and Piano from 1988 to 2005. Simon came to prominence during the jazz boom of the 1980s, and has made a significant contribution to jazz education in the UK. Fit for the 21st century | 33
Facilities and strategic highlights
Guildhall School enjoys some of the best facilities for training in performance arts and production anywhere in the world, supported by a business strategy which helps us to stay at the forefront of our field. This year, we have made real progress in enhancing our IT provision and our approach to sustainability. Our ongoing plans include identifying new spaces and facilities to ensure we can diversify, innovate and remain at the leading edge of our field.
Access and Participation Plan
£650k invested in IT in 2018/19
30,000
views of the new Guildhall Stream performance archive
489.7k
visitors to our website: gsmd.ac.uk
38%
of total website traffic from outside the UK
34 | Fit for the 21st century
Access and Participation Plans aim to improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups in higher education. In 2019, the Office for Students changed its requirements so that registered providers must submit fiveyear (instead of one-year) plans. Guildhall conducted extensive preparation for its five-year plan, consulting students, staff and the Board of Governors and undertaking a critical self-analysis of activity and performance to date. The School’s new five-year plan was approved by the Office for Students, and our work towards it has raised the profile of access and participation across the School and helped to refine and target this vital part of our ethos and strategy.
Sustainability Having developed action plans and policies on issues including carbon reduction, sustainable food and green transport, in July 2019 we were delighted that the School has jumped 60 places to become the highest-ranking conservatoire in the People & Planet University League, which ranks UK universities by environmental and ethical performance. The work of the student-led Environment Society, which promotes environmental action among staff and students, also contributed to our ranking as ‘Good’ in the NUS Green Impact Awards, the accreditation scheme for green good practice among Students’ Unions.
Giacomo Occhipinti
Technology for creativity During 2018/19, our digital strategy was hugely enhanced by the merger of the Barbican and Guildhall School’s IT departments, enabling us to make plans for the long-term and deliver immediate efficiencies and investment, including a new intranet to act as the portal to all School systems. A restructure of the IT team was also completed. Our new Head of Business Systems and Data, Marius Jugariu, laid the groundwork for an asset management system; two Information Security and Infrastructure Managers and two Network Analysts were appointed; a new Learning Technologist, Giacomo Occhipinti, will optimise students’ use of technology and progress the School’s plans for virtual learning. In terms of hardware, new acoustic, recording, presentation and teaching displays, and laptops for agile working, have been installed. A technology accessibility audit was completed, and scoping to redesign our website is underway. Successful deployment of new software included Microsoft Teams for rapid collaboration (see page 29); Auralia, for students to practice and hone aural perception; the Moodle learning platform for online course management, and Guildhall Stream, which is home to a burgeoning online collection of student performance (see page 50).
Development and Alumni Relations
Thanks to our donors:
564
students were awarded scholarships
250
people in the community received music therapy
21
expert vocal masterclasses were delivered
384 hrs of additional chamber music coaching was provided
The School’s Advancement department became fully operational during the year, bringing a united focus to our Development & Alumni Relations and Marketing & Communications teams, and new impetus to the vital work of building relationships and sustaining our income. The increasing demands on our Scholarships Fund, and our ambitious development plans, mean that the need for support has never been greater – and that its impact on the next generation of artists will be profound. Our supporters are listed on page 55.
Guildhall School supporters The School is immensely grateful for the generosity of individuals, liveries, companies and trusts whose multiyear pledges and donations totalled over £2.47 million during 2018/19. Our community of alumni and Fellows continue to enhance the life of the School, committing their time, attending events, providing mentoring, leading masterclasses and lending expert support to students and staff.
Scholarships and careers support The School has seen a 29% increase in demand on its Scholarships Fund over the last three years. Student support is more vital than ever, with fundraising contributing to 564
scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate study (50% of the student population) and providing scholarships for Junior Guildhall and Centre for Young Musicians. In 2018, the Alumni Relations and Research & Enterprise departments worked closely together to enhance careers provision, giving Guildhall graduates the skills and resources they need to excel.
Enhancing world-class training In 2018/19, donations from supporters enabled the School to deliver distinctive training by funding an expansion of our Vocal Masterclass provision as well as 384 additional hours of chamber music coaching, and also enabled Guildhall composers and musicians to write and record for Illuminated River, a major public art commission that will eventually see the illumination of up to 15 bridges along the Thames.
Advancing artistic citizenship Our supporters have funded a range of projects for social engagement led by students and staff during the year, including Music, Memory and Me to share songs and music with older patients at the Royal Free and University College London Hospitals, and Music Therapy placements in boroughs including Tower Hamlets and Islington.
“It brings sunlight to the afternoon. I feel happy and alive.” Response from an older patient to Music, Memory and Me
Left: Guildhall musicians bring music and song to older hospital patients and those with dementia as part of Music, Memory and Me, a partnership project between University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Guildhall’s Creative Learning team (see page 24). Music, Memory and Me was named Best Collaborative Arts Project (Performance) at the 2017 Building Better Healthcare Awards.
Fit for the 21st century | 35
generating activities now make up the majority of its funding. In addition, the Guildhall School Trust provides grants to the Scholarship Fund and other projects supported by philanthropy.
A strong financial model
The School recorded a deficit of £851,000 for the year ended 31 July 2019, due to planned increases in staff costs and investment in teaching and support staff. The deficit was anticipated as part of the School’s five-year strategic plan, which includes ambitions for the School to be more entrepreneurial, impactful and self-sustaining. A planned surplus of £1.3m in the previous year enabled the School to build up its reserves in order to finance future growth and development plans.
Guildhall School’s unique historic relationship with the City of London Corporation has provided strong foundations for the School’s development since the late 19th century – and our relationship continues to evolve today. The School operates within the governance arrangements of the City of London Corporation, of which it is a Department. The School’s Board of Governors includes experts from the arts and education sectors, elected members of Guildhall staff and the Students’ Union president. The Board is advised by committees for governance and effectiveness; finance and resources; audit and risk management, and remuneration and nominations, as well as a reference sub-committee and an academic assurance working group. The City of London recognises the need for the Board of Governors to enjoy operational autonomy. The City of London Corporation was the School’s sole funder until 2006, when Guildhall School was designated as a publicly-funded Higher Education Institution and began to receive funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (as it then was). Guildhall is now a registered Higher Education Provider with the Office for Students. The School still receives substantial support from the City, but has diversified its income streams so that tuition fees, grants and income36 | Fit for the 21st century
The plan for the next academic year is to continue to invest in staffing and infrastructure that will allow the School to reach out to new audiences and broaden the scope of its academic offer. This will inevitably see calls on the School’s reserves in 2019/20 and 2020/21 before the School moves back into a surplus position in 2021/22. Vivienne Littlechild mbe jp Chairman of the Board of Governors
Income
£000
HE tuition fees
9,250
Guildhall School Trust Scholarships
1,770
Grants
8,658
City of London contribution
6,289
Income generation and other activities
4,355
Guildhall Young Artists tuition fees
2,922
Total 2018/19
33,244
Total 2017/18
32,987
Expenditure
£000
HE teaching and teaching departments
12,967
Academic services
2,967
Student support services
2,361
Central administration services
4,001
Income-generating activities
2,556
Guildhall Young Artists activity and outreach
3,413
Premises and residential
5,830
Total 2018/19
34,095
Total 2017/18
31,657
Surplus/(deficit) 2018/19
(851)
Surplus/(deficit) 2017/18
1,330
4,001
2,556
3,413
5,830
Central administration services
Income-generating activities
Guildhall Young Artists activity and outreach
Premises and residential
12,967 HE teaching and teaching departments
2,361
2,922 Guildhall Young Artists tuition fees
Student support services
4,355 Income generation and other activities
2,967
6,289 City of London contribution
Academic services
8,658
Guildhall School Trust Scholarships
Grants
Total: £34,095
1,770
Expenditure (£000)
Total: £33,244
9,250
Income (£000)
HE tuition fees
Financial profile
Fit for the 21st century | 37
Higher education student profile
Qualifications
Qualifications awarded for 2018/19 cycle
(as at 3 October 2019) Bachelors degrees (including Ordinary degrees)
168
Masters degrees
169
Artist Diplomas
11
Total 2018/19
348
Total 2017/18
336
Undergraduate student cohort
Total (FTE)
Programme
64
countries represented in the student body
33.5%
BA in Acting
66
BA in Acting Studies
12
BA in Technical Theatre Arts
108
BA in Video Design for Live Performance
11
BMus
424
BA in Performance & Creative Enterprise
28
Total 2018/19
649
Total 2017/18
645
of student population from outside the UK
15.3%
2018 new enrolment Disability
Sex
Ethnicity
The top non-UK countries of origin for incoming students (with greatest first) are: Spain, Germany, Poland, USA, Portugal, Italy, China, France, Ireland, Hong Kong, and Canada.
38 | Fit for the 21st century
0.5% Information refused
17% BME
82.5% White
16.5% Declared
52.5v% Male
Student intake
0.5% Other
applications for full-time programmes from 82 countries
47% Female
3,865
83.5% Undeclared
of our incoming student cohort from outside the EU
Postgraduate student cohort
Total (FTE)
Programme
MA in Acting
12
MA in Training Actors
2
MA in Collaborative Theatre Production & Design
8
Artist Diploma
26
Guildhall Artist Masters
228
MA in Music Therapy
18.5
MA in Opera Making & Writing
5
DMus/PhD
35.5
PGCert in Performance Teaching
22
Total 2018/19
357
Total 2017/18
356.5
2018 new enrolment
3.5% Information refused
17.5% BME
79% White
Ethnicity
9% Declared
91% Undeclared
0.5% Other
42.5% Male
Disability
57% Female
Sex
Other
Total (FTE)
Programme
Advanced Certificate
15
Fellows
47
â€
Total 2018/19
62
Total 2017/18
58.5
Fellows are students only in respect of their extra-mural tuition. Fellows are shown as headcount.
â€
Fit for the 21st century | 39
Junior Guildhall
Student Cohort 2018/19
Music course
313
String Training programme
184
Brass Training programme
14
Drama course
42
Total 2018/19
3% Information refused
35.5% BME
Ethnicity
87% None
4% Information refused
9% Declared
33% State
Disability
16.5% Not known
7.5% Other
39.5% Independent
3.5% Home educated
Schooling
57.5% Female
42.5% Male
Sex
553
61.5% White
Under-18s student profile
Centre for Young Musicians
Student Cohort 2018/19
London Centre
417
Norfolk Centre
122
Peterborough Centre
100
Taunton Centre
40 | Fit for the 21st century
72
Saffron Walden Centre
124
Total 2018/19
835
73% White
Saffron Walden 90% State
6% Independent
Saffron Walden
4% Home educated
75% State
51% Male
49% Female
49% Male
51% Female
46% Male
Saffron Walden
27% BME
79% White
Taunton 17% Independent
Taunton
8% Home educated
86% State
4% Independent
54% Female
42% Male
58% Female
Taunton
21% BME
83% White
Norfolk
7% Unknown
Norfolk
10% Home educated
75% State
17% Independent
7% Unknown
1% Home educated
74% State
Norfolk
10% BME
59% White
34% Unknown
London
7% BME
Ethnicity 49% Male
London
15.5% Independent
51% Female
Schooling
7% Unknown
3.5% Home educated
London
51.5% White
9.5% Unknown
39% BME
Sex Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough
Fit for the 21st century | 41
Celebrating success
42 | Celebrating success
Alumni awards
The prizes, awards and roles garnered by Guildhall School alumni demonstrate that our approach to training can lay the foundations for astonishing careers. Here, we highlight major prizes and roles awarded to alumni in 2018/19.
Harriet Burns
Music Ricardo Panela (Vocal Studies 2012) won Best Artist at the Armel Opera Festival in Budapest. Pablo González (Music 1999) was
appointed the new Director of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid and artistic adviser of the Orchestra and Choir. Jennifer Witton (Vocal Studies 2018)
won the inaugural By Voice Alone competition at Kings Place. The Barbican String Quartet, comprising alumni Amarins Wierdsma (Violin 2017), Tim Crawford (Violin 2017), Christoph Slenczka (Viola 2016) and Yoanna Prodanova (Cello 2018), won the International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition.
Harriet Burns (Vocal Studies 2018) won second prize at the Wigmore Hall/ Independent Opera International Song Competition. Daryl Jamieson (Composition 2003) became the recipient of the third annual Toshi Ichiyanagi Contemporary Prize. Emma Martin (Violin 1996) and Deian Rowlands (Harp 2002) are part of
chamber group The Dionysus Ensemble who have been appointed as the first ever Ensemble in Residence for The Commonwealth Resounds, one of only two accredited Commonwealth music organisations.
At this summer’s Garsington Opera Young Artist Awards, Bianca Andrew (Opera Studies 2017) was the joint winner of the Leonard Ingrams Award.
Dinis Sousa (Piano 2014) has been appointed as the first ever Assistant Conductor to Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras.
Lauren Fagan (Opera Studies 2014) and Luis Gomes (Opera Studies 2012) were finalists in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Lauren represented her country Australia, while Luis represented Portugal.
Oliver Pashley (Clarinet 2014) was
Ting-Ru Lai (Viola 2017) was appointed as London Philharmonic Orchestra’s new No. 4 Violist. Stephen Barlow (Music 1976) was nominated for a UK Theatre Award in the Achievement in Opera category for the Buxton International Festival’s world premiere of Georgiana.
appointed Sub-Principal Clarinet of Britten Sinfonia. Natalya Romaniw (Opera Studies 2011) made her ENO debut as Mimì in the fourth revival of Jonathan Miller’s production of La bohème. Luke Russell (Flute 2012) has been appointed Principal Piccolo in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Scott MacIsaac (Piano 2018) won the
Sonata Prize in the Shigeru Kawai International Piano Competition (Tokyo).
Kris Garfitt (Trombone 2015) won this year’s Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition Gold Medal. John Findon (Opera Studies 2017)
was named as one of English National Opera’s new Harewood Artists, joining alumni David Ireland (Opera Studies 2017) and Elgan Llŷr Thomas (Opera Studies 2016) on the scheme. Elitsa Bogdanova (Viola 2012) was selected to join the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. Celebrating success | 43
British Composer Awards
Drama
Emily Peasgood (Vocal Studies 2003),
Natasha Gordon (Acting 1999) won the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her debut play Nine Night. Rona Morison (Acting 2011) was nominated for the Emerging Talent Award for her performance as Sandy in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar Warehouse.
won in the Sonic Art category for her interactive sound installation Halfway to Heaven. Awards to repetiteurs can be found on page 15. Guildhall at the BBC Proms
Many Guildhall artists appeared at this year’s Proms, one of the world’s leading music festivals: •
•
(Junior Guildhall 2004), composer-performer.
received a Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to drama. Jacqui Dankworth (Acting 1984) was also recognised, receiving an MBE for her services to music.
Benjamin Hulett
Ashley Zhangazha (Acting 2010) won
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian
(Opera Studies 2003), tenor. •
Ben Gernon (Tuba 2012), conductor.
•
David Shipley
•
(Composition 2008), composer. Natalya Romaniw
Fraser James (Acting 1991) was
Mica Levi
(Opera Studies 2011), soprano. •
David Ireland
(Opera Studies 2016), bass-baritone. •
Roderick Williams
(Opera Studies 1995), baritone. •
Sir Simon Rattle
(Artist-in-Association), conductor. •
Jules Buckley
(Composition 2004), conductor. •
Thomas Atkins
(Opera Studies 2016), tenor. •
Marta Fontanals-Simmons
(Vocal Studies 2016), mezzo-soprano. •
Alison Rose (Opera Studies 2016),
soprano. •
Ryan Wigglesworth
(Opera Studies 2002), conductor. •
Ashley Riches
(Vocal Studies 2012), bass-baritone. •
Richard Balcombe
(Piano Accompaniment 1978), conductor. Many more alumni, staff and students also appeared across the Proms this year in orchestras and as members of technical crew, supporting soloists and featured performers.
44 | Celebrating success
a UK Theatre Award for his portrayal of Skye in the Royal Exchange production of Guys and Dolls. Jodie Whittaker (Acting 2005) received the Freedom of the City of London, alongside alumna Kate Royal (Opera 2003).
(Opera Studies 2015), bass. •
Simon Russell Beale (Acting 1983)
nominated for Best Breakthrough Performance at the National Film Awards UK for his performance in the feature film Yardie, Idris Elba’s directorial debut. Isabel Ellison (Acting 2010) has produced a New York production of A Streetcar Named Desire which features a genderqueer actor in the iconic role of Blanche DuBois for the first time. Joshua Miles (Acting 2011) has written his first play, Be Reet, which he directed at Higher Walton Community Centre in April. Simon Money (Acting 2012) joined the permanent staff at the National Theatre as a voice coach and has worked on productions including Top Girls and Rutherford and Son.
Production Arts Awards to Production Arts students and alumni can be found on page 13.
Right: Honorands at Graduation Day 2018. (Top row, left to right) Tansy Davies, Richard Bissill, Hayley Atwell. (Bottom row, left to right) Chairman Vivienne Littlechild, Principal Lynne Williams, Nelly Ben-Or.
Guildhall Fellows and Honorary Fellows 2018/19 Fellowship is Guildhall School’s highest accolade. Each year, the Board of Governors elects a small number of Fellows to recognise outstanding achievement or service by past and present members of staff, members of the Board and former students. Honorary Fellowships recognise outstanding professional achievement or service to Guildhall by practitioners who do not have a formal connection with the School. New Fellows •
Hayley Atwell (Acting 2005).
•
Nelly Ben-Or, Professor of Piano
and Alexander Technique. •
Richard Bissill, Professor of Horn.
•
Stephen Dagg, Interim Head
New Honorary Fellows •
Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director, Boy Blue Entertainment.
•
Vikki Heywood CBE, Chairman, RSA
(Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). •
Louise Jeffreys, Artistic Director,
Barbican. •
Liz Lerman, choreographer, writer, teacher and speaker.
•
Helen Marriage MBE, Co-Founder
and Director, Artichoke. •
Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy MBE, Cofounder and Co-Artistic Director, Boy Blue Entertainment.
of Guildhall Young Artists Regional Centres. •
Tansy Davies (Composition 1998).
•
Nick Peel, Lecturer in Lighting
Design and Technology. •
Robert Pell, Junior Guildhall Professor of Piano from 1984 to 2017. New Honorary Fellows – Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante and Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy MBE
Celebrating success | 45
Student awards
Guildhall School students consistently achieve recognition of their exceptional talent in a wide range of national and international awards and prizes, and in the roles they win on graduation.
Vocal and Opera Seán Boylan (Advanced Certificate Opera Studies) won the Helen Clarke Award at the Garsington Opera Awards. Gethin Lewis (MPerf Vocal Studies) will join Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Madison Nonoa (MPerf Opera Studies)
won the McCormick Opera Competition (New Zealand). Claire Barnett-Jones (Artist Diploma
Above: the Guildhall Music Gold Medal Jury 2019, with Gold Medal winner Samantha Clarke (centre) and Sir Bryn Terfel CBE (centre left). Sir Bryn (Opera 1989) returned to judge the competition, 30 years after winning the Gold Medal himself.
Vocal Studies) won the Dutch Wagner Prize and Junior Jury Prize in the ‘s-Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition. Claire was also named as one of English National Opera’s new Harewood Artists. Rachel Roper (BMus Vocal Studies) won the Joyce Budd Second Prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers. Camille Lemonnier (Advanced Certificate Piano Accompaniment) won the Dennis Horner Accompanist’s Prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers.
Above: Mirren Mack receiving the Acting Gold
Medal from the Lord Mayor’s Representative at Graduation Day.
Guildhall Prizes Music Gold Medal: soprano Samantha
Clarke Acting Gold Medal: Mirren Mack Production Arts Gold Medal: Tom
Mackey Guildhall Wigmore Recital Prize:
mezzo soprano Ema Nikolovska Junior Guildhall Lutine Prize: cellist
Alex Ciulin
The National Opera Studio Young Artists for 2019/20 include singers Alexandra Lowe (Artist Diploma Opera Studies), Frederick Jones (Artist Diploma Opera Studies), Benson Wilson (Advanced Certificate Opera Studies) and pianist Mairi Harris Grewar (Repetiteur 2018). Andres Presno (Grad Cert Vocal Studies) was selected for the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House. Alexandra Lowe (Artist Diploma Opera Studies) won the Opera Prize and Audience Vote at the Clonter Opera Prize. Jonah Halton (BMus Vocal Studies) and Camille Lemonnier (Advanced Certificate Piano Accompaniment) won first prize at the Franz-Schubert-Institut Lieder Prize. Benson Wilson (Advanced Certificate Opera Studies) won first prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards. Christian Valle (Advanced Certificate
Opera Studies) joined the Bavarian State Opera Young Artist programme. Samuel Carl (MMus Opera Studies) joined the Dutch National Opera Studio.
46 | Celebrating success
Brian McAlea (MPerf Vocal Studies) was awarded a Young Musicians’ Platform Award by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and BBC Northern Ireland.
Ema Nikolovska at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards
Ema Nikolovska (MMus Opera Studies) won the Singers second prize in the International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition (Vienna) and the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards. Joël Terrin (Advanced Certificate Vocal Studies) and Matthew Gemmill (Artist
Diploma Piano Accompaniment) won second prize in the Somerset Song Prize.
98.2%
of students in work, due to start work or in further study six months after graduation*
100%
employment rate for our Production Arts graduates*
87%
of around 10,000 active alumni work in the performing arts*
24
players in the London Symphony Orchestra trained at Guildhall (7 principals)
21
players in the Philharmonia (8 principals)
17
players in the BBC Symphony Orchestra (3 principals) * Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) Survey 2016/17
Aida Gimeno Garcia (MPerf Vocal
Studies) was accepted at the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo and for further study at Opera Studio in Valencia. Jacobo Ochoa (BMus Vocal Studies) and Alexandra Lowe (Artist Diploma Opera Studies) were awarded Drake Calleja Trust scholarships. Mark Christian Bautista (BMus Vocal
Studies) won the Male/Female Singers first prize in the Dean and Chadlington Summer Music Festival Singing Competition 2019. Keyboard Kathy Chow (Artist Diploma Piano)
won first prize in the Birmingham International Piano Competition, and Karnsiri Prim Laothamatas (Artist Diploma Piano) won second prize. Manon Fischer-Dieskau (MPerf
Repetiteur) won the Pianists second prize in the International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition. Kerry Waller (MMus Piano) won second
The Jubilee String Quartet, which includes Lorena Cantó Woltèche (BMus Viola) and Toby White (Artist Diploma Cello), won first prize in the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award (Lugano) and was appointed Associate String Quartet at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Piotr Hetman (MMus Double Bass) was invited to participate in the Gustav Mahler Academy masterclasses with members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
The Mithras Trio won the Cavatina intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition, first prize in the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award and the Strings and Piano Ensemble Section Prize in the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. Marmen Quartet Fellows won the Grand Prize Bordeaux Quartet Competition. Strings Joanna Twaddle (BMus Cello) was awarded a £5,000 scholarship in the Muriel Taylor Scholarship Competition for Cellists. Composition Annie Chown (Junior Guildhall Composition) was Highly Commended in this summer’s BBC Proms Inspire Competition Lower Junior Category, for her piece Conflict and Resolution. Acting Yuanqing Zou (BA Acting Studies) was named Best Newcomer at the China Film Performing Art Institute Awards for her role in the film I’m Your Mother.
prize in the Shean Piano Competition (Canada).
Final year actors who went on to prestigious roles include:
Michael Pandya (Artist Diploma Piano
Emma Canning in Night of the Iguana at Noël Coward Theatre.
Accompaniment) won the Gerald Moore Award and Pianist’s Prize in the Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera International Song Competition. Joon Yoon (Artist Diploma Piano)
won first prize (Gold Trophy) in the International Piano Campus Competition in France. Chamber music Apollo’s Cabinet ensemble won the
Brian Nisbet Early Music Prize.
Poppy Gilbert in Call the Midwife
(BBC). Mirren Mack in The Nest (Studio Lambert for the BBC) and Sex Education (Netflix). Kristina Tonteri-Young in Warrior Nun
(Netflix). Production Arts Awards to Production Arts students and alumni can be found on page 13.
Celebrating success | 47
Roll call: Guildhall productions and events
Towers
Guildhall School is always buzzing with the excitement of first nights, last nights – and every performance in between. Here, we list student performances and events mounted during the year.
Drama October 2018: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis
A court in downtown Purgatory deliberates over the ultimate fate of Judas Iscariot. October 2018: Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley
An apocalyptic collision of personal and political history (see page 13).
Raising the curtain in China In July 2019, BA Acting Studies students from China performed their newly devised work, The Journey, at Guildhall. In September, they took the production to the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing for an audience including industry professionals. All BA Acting Studies students also auditioned for a Royal Shakespeare Company and Beijing Repertory Company co-production of Macbeth, to be performed across China in 2020.
November 2018: Saturday, Sunday, Monday by Eduardo de Filippo
An Italian family gathering is shattered by explosive revelations. February 2019: Fury by Phoebe Eclair-Powell
Medea reimagined as the struggle of a young single mother.
“The students of Guildhall School of Music & Drama deftly directed by Nicole Charles impress with their well-crafted interpretations.” Parikiaki newspaper
48 | Celebrating success
February 2019: Detroit by Lisa D’Amour
A portrait of the shattering of a suburban dream. February 2019: Towers devised by the Company with Ameera Conrad
Conflicting views on the development of a South London estate come to a head.
“Martha (Erica Nicole Rothman) and Liam (Jordan Angell) [are] residents of the housing block soon to be demolished and replaced … Both give extremely balanced, calm portrayals of characters in crisis; Rothman, in particular, should be singled out as a spectacular performer.” **** LondonTheatre1.com March 2019: Orestes by Euripides
The ancient tragedy of the Greek hero who murdered his mother. July 2019: Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim
The lives of a New York composer and his estranged friends revisited in reverse chronology (see page 13).
132
ticketed events across Guildhall School venues
Opera Scenes and Opera Makers
Opera November 2018: Mozart, Così fan tutte
A comic tale of the battle of the sexes but love conquers all (see page 15).
13,301 tickets sold for Guildhall events
£143k
Così fan tutte
gross income from ticket sales
300
free tickets for young people to attend a Guildhall School performance
March 2019: Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Britten’s magical interpretation of Shakespeare’s tale of lovers, fairies and comic mix-ups (see page 15).
Two performances of classical and contemporary Opera Scenes took place during the year, as well as the end of year Opera Makers event. Performed by singers and repetiteurs from the first year of the Guildhall Opera Course, Opera Makers features new music written by composers and librettists on Guildhall’s MA in Opera Making & Writing, an innovative programme delivered in association with the Royal Opera House. In 2018/19, three new opera works – written especially for and developed with the singers – were performed with a small orchestral ensemble, linked by well-known opera scenes accompanied by piano. Blind Bahaa Ansary composer Monika Dalach librettist
Genizah Richard Melkonian composer Yashka Moore librettist
Grace Maeve McCarthy composer Sophie Rashbrook librettist
Spotlight on South Africa A Midsummer Night’s Dream
June 2019: Handel, Aminta e Fillide and Blow, Venus and Adonis
Two early operatic works exploring the pursuit and passion, happiness and heartbreak of romantic love.
“… the sheer verve and zing of this theatrical extravaganza was completely unforced, joyous, unpretentious – and bespoke a true and happy full-on engagement with both pieces.”
During 2019, senior staff from Guildhall’s Opera and Vocal Studies Departments visited South Africa to consolidate emerging partnerships with the Royal Opera House, Voices of South Africa Trust and NorthWest University Potchefstroom. The partnerships will provide advocacy, masterclasses, training and visits to the UK for exceptional but financially disadvantaged singers from South Africa.
Critics’ Circle
Celebrating success | 49
Guildhall Stream: saving and sharing performance videos In September 2018 we launched the Guildhall Stream online content delivery platform, an everevolving archive which captures our concerts, performances and events on video. Students and staff can easily add new video, students can examine the evolution of their work in close detail, and staff can rapidly add performance insights to their teaching. Guildhall Stream has become an essential part of the School’s digital offering. As Jonathan Vaughan, Vice Principal & Director of Music, put it: “Guildhall Stream … has been utterly transformational. Being able to access high quality, welledited performances together with data about performers, often spontaneously and routinely within hours, is extraordinary.”
Classical music September 2018: Guildhall Symphony Orchestra & Chorus – Verdi, Requiem
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra and Chorus joined forces with acclaimed alumni singers to perform Verdi’s choral masterpiece, conducted by James Blair. October 2018: Ethel Smyth, Grasp the Nettle
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra tackled two 20th century masterworks under the baton of Japanese conductor Takuo Yuasa. March 2019: Guildhall Symphony Orchestra, Dvořák Symphony No 8 in G and Shostakovich Symphony No 10
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra with Russian conductor Vassily Sinaisky, The life and work of Dame Ethyl Smyth, playing Shostakovich’s symphonic suffragette, writer and composer, portrait of Stalin and Dvořák’s spirited celebrated in a performance by Lucy Eighth Symphony. Stevens weaving together Smyth’s words and music. March and April 2019: BBC Symphony October 2018: Hansel and Gretel
A reimagining of the famous tale using poetry, puppetry and chamber music. October 2018: Australian Chamber Orchestra Side-by-Side
Guildhall musicians played a varied programme including Bach, Beethoven and Verdi, alongside the Australian Chamber Orchestra, International Associate at Milton Court, under the direction of violinist Richard Tognetti. November 2018: BBC Symphony Orchestra Total Immersion – In Remembrance World War I
Guildhall musicians joined commemorations for the centenary of the end of the First World War, playing as part of a BBC Symphony Orchestra Total Immersion weekend and presenting songs by composers who lost their lives during the war. November 2018: Alumni Recital Series – Sa Chen, piano
Sa Chen, who came to prominence when she was selected for the final of the Leeds International Piano Competition aged only 16, gave a recital of Debussy’s Images Books 1 & 2 and Études Nos 1 to 12. November 2018: Alumni Recital Series – Guitar Spectacular
An evening of music for guitar by Walton, Marais, Stravinsky, Bowers and others, performed by Guildhall alumni.
50 | Celebrating success
November 2018: Guildhall Symphony Orchestra – Mahler, Symphony No 4 and Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring
Orchestra Total Immersion – Ligeti; Lili and Nadia Boulanger
Chamber music performed by Guildhall musicians as part of BBC SO Total Immersion days featuring the work of post-war avant-garde composer György Ligeti and early 20th century sister composers Lili and Nadia Boulanger. May 2019: Festival of Classical Improvisation
The first ever international festival celebrating the revival of classical improvisation, in a partnership between Guildhall’s Centre for Creative Performance and Classical Improvisation and Imperial College London. The three-day free festival of performances, lectures, workshops, masterclasses and audience conversations featured faculty professors, musicians, researchers and international guest artists. June 2019: LSO and Guildhall Symphony Orchestra Side-by-Side
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra’s annual side-by-side concert with the LSO at the Barbican, playing Bruckner’s Symphony No 4, Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (see page 15). Guildhall musicians also performed at eleven platform performances before LSO concerts during the year.
Marin Alsop
July 2019: Chamber Music Festival
Visiting artists
The second of Guildhall’s annual faculty and student collaborations, with a host of chamber music performances and events featuring the School’s most accomplished chamber groups and collaborations with renowned performers and teachers.
Students were able to learn from a wide range of classical music artists at Guildhall performances and masterclasses during the year, including: Marin Alsop conductor and violin Richard Goode piano Andrew Marriner clarinet Edith Wiens singer James Blair conductor Richard Tognetti conductor and violin Andrew Watkinson conductor and violin Richard Farnes conductor Vassily Sinaisky conductor Takuo Yuasa conductor Ensemble Bash Emerson String Quartet Sa Chen piano Peter Frankl piano Francesca di Rosa oboe Finghin Collins piano Tobias Truniger opera programme
director Ann Murray singer Judith Weir composer
Celebrating success | 51
Rufus Reid
Jazz
May 2019: Guildhall Jazz Orchestra with Elliot Mason
October 2018: Guildhall Jazz Showcase
A showcase featuring the virtuosity and innovation of trombonist/composer Elliot Mason in performance with Guildhall Jazz musicians.
The annual Guildhall Jazz Showcase pulsed through three heady days of diverse jazz performance from students, alumni, staff and visiting artists including the Jason Rebello Trio. November 2018: Celebration of Jazz Voice
A celebration of the range and emotional power of the jazz vocal from Guildhall Jazz Singers. January 2019: Mark Lockheart and Guildhall Studio Orchestra
Two events to celebrate the work of John Coltrane: a joint programme of songs with vocalist/composer Cleveland Watkiss, and music written or inspired by Coltrane played by Guildhall Jazz Orchestra with guest saxophonist Jean Toussaint. Visiting artists
A nonet of musicians from Guildhall’s Jazz programme joined saxophonist/composer Mark Lockheart for a retrospective of his mediumensemble output.
Students were able to learn from a wide range of jazz artists at Guildhall performances and masterclasses during the year, including:
January 2019: Rufus Reid with the Guildhall Jazz Orchestra – Quiet Pride
Mark Lockheart saxophone
Guildhall Jazz Orchestra joined Rufus Reid, one of the world’s greatest jazz bass players, to perform Quiet Pride, inspired by the sculptures of African-American artist Elizabeth Catlett.
Jeremy Lubbock composer
Rufus Reid double bass Elliot Mason trombone Derek Paravicini piano Steve Williamson saxophone
March 2019 Guildhall Jazz Orchestra – Modern Jazz Classics
Liane Carroll vocal
A Guildhall Jazz Orchestra concert of modern classics including Kenny Wheeler’s Sweet Time Suite.
Tommy Blaize vocal
March 2019: Guildhall Studio Orchestra – Jeremy Lubbock: A Life in Music
A celebration in music and song of the work of Jeremy Lubbock, one of the greatest arrangers in jazz and popular music. May 2019: Guildhall Jazz Festival
Guildhall’s summer Jazz Festival showcased Guildhall Jazz Department musicians in a celebration of Duke Ellington and informal combos, and featured performances from artists including Cleveland Watkiss UK All Stars, Nikki Iles & The Print Makers and Mercury-nominated band Dinosaur.
52 | Celebrating success
July 2019: Guildhall Jazz Singers and Guildhall Jazz Orchestra – Celebrating Coltrane
Joe Stilgoe vocal
Cleveland Watkiss vocal
Electronic music Guildhall Session Orchestra is featured on page 9.
Orestes by Euripides (March 2019)
Celebrating success | 53
Who’s who
54 | Celebrating success
Our supporters
Guildhall School of Music & Drama is exceptionally grateful to its family of supporters, who make an invaluable contribution to the life of the School.
Major Benefactors (£10,000+)
Exceptional Giving (£100,000+)
Mr Robert Byford
The Leverhulme Trust
Ms Elmira Darvarova
The late Ms Ariadne Van De Ven
The David Family Foundation
Founding Corporate Partner
Mr Mark Dixon & Dr Giulia Nobili
Eversheds Sutherland
The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust
Leadership Giving (£25,000+)
The Amar-Franses and Foster-Jenkins Trust
The Behrens Foundation The Boltini Trust
The Drapers’ Company Albert and Eugenie Frost Music Trust The Girdlers’ Company Charitable Trust
The Fishmongers’ Company
The Haberdashers’ Company
The Norman Gee Foundation
London Symphony Orchestra
The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity
The Sidney Perry Foundation
The Leathersellers’ Company
Mitzi Scott Rabinowitz
The late Miss Thelma Tillaney
M&C Saatchi and The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation
The Wolfson Foundation Henry Wood Accommodation Trust
The Skinners’ Company – Lawrence Atwell’s Charity The South Square Trust The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers The Worshipful Company of Grocers The Worshipful Company of Innholders The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers Peter and Corinne Young Our gratitude extends to all our donors and legacy pledgers not listed here, as well as those who wish to remain anonymous.
Who’s who | 55
Patron, Board of Governors and Senior Leadership
Patron
Senior leadership
The Rt. Hon. the Lord Mayor of the City of London
Principal
Chairman of the Board of Governors
Vice Principal & Director of Music
Vivienne Littlechild mbe jp Deputy Chairman of the Board of Governors
Deputy John Bennett mbe (until May 2019) Graham Packham (from May 2019)
Lynne Williams am Jonathan Vaughan Vice Principal & Director of Drama
Orla O’Loughlin (from January 2019) Vice Principal & Director of Production Arts
Ben Sumner
Board members
Vice Principal & Director of Advancement
George Abrahams (from April 2019)
Jeremy Newton
Randall Anderson
Secretary & Dean of Students
Deputy David Bradshaw (from April 2019) Sir Andrew Burns kcmg (until April 2019) Deputy Michael Cassidy Deputy John Chapman
Katharine Lewis Director of Learning & Engagement
Sean Gregory Director of Guildhall Young Artists & Safeguarding
Alison Mears
Felicity Chilton, as President of the Students’ Union
Director of Creative Learning
Christina Coker obe (until November 2018)
Chief Operating & Financial Officer
Professor Geoffrey Crossick Professor Maria Delgado (from February 2019)
Jenny Mollica Sandeep Dwesar Director of Buildings & Operations
Jonathon Poyner
Stuart John Fraser cbe (until April 2019) Marianne Fredericks Shreela Ghosh Gareth Higgins, elected by the Administrative Staff (until February 2019) Michael Hoffman Ann Holmes Jeremy Mayhew Alderman William Russell Andy Taylor, elected by the Academic Staff Lynne Williams am, as Principal of Guildhall School of Music & Drama
56 | Who’s who
Photo credits: Paul Cochrane, Clive Totman, Clive Barda, Matthew Ferguson (FG Studios), Alan Kerr, Matilda James, Manuel Harlan, Robin Savage, Hans Hijmering, Man Yee Lee, Musical Olympus Foundation, Centre for Music courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Ali Wright, Alma Rosaz, Monika Jast (FG Studios), CYM London, Sharon Wallace, Stephen Burnett, Museum of London, Hugo Glendinning, Kampo Kikkas, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Emma Brown.
About Guildhall School delivers world-leading professional training in music, drama and production arts, working in dynamic partnership with leading artists, companies and ensembles.
The School enjoys a unique historic role in the cultural life of the City of London, yet our perspective is global and forwardlooking. Our state of the art performance and teaching spaces, eminent staff and progressive curriculum attract students from over 60 countries to pursue their ambitions as the next generation of world-class artists. We foster exploration, innovation and entrepreneurship among both staff and students, and seek to embed leading edge research into the impact of the arts and the role of artists in the 21st century. Our fundamental commitment is to the transformative power of the artist within society. Our mission is to empower artists to realise their full potential; to develop distinctive artistic citizens who enrich the lives of others and make a positive impact in the world. gsmd.ac.uk
Cover image: Beasts of London Š Museum of London
gsmd.ac.uk
Annual Report 2018/19
Guildhall School is provided by the City of London as part of its contribution to the cultural life of London and the nation.