From Individual Practitioner to Company Director, with the help of MusicLeader West Midlands.

Ever since my music teacher suggested I have singing lessons at the age of 11, I was always ‘going to be’ a performer.

I studied Music at Durham University and then went on to do a PhD in Performance Studies at Sheffield University. After my PhD, I took a year out to raise money and audition for music college, and it seemed a logical choice to try to get work as a singing teacher during this period, even though I had sworn blind I would ‘never’ be a teacher! I gained work with several local authority music services and private schools, and just as I was realizing that I really enjoyed being a teacher, I was successful in gaining a place to study postgraduate voice at Trinity College of Music. I chose to accept, but all the way through my year in London I really missed teaching and interacting with young musicians. By the end of the year I realized that although I definitely still wanted to perform, I also wanted to work in education.

On graduation, I was lucky enough to immediately be offered a job with Birmingham Music Service as a Vocal and Curriculum Teacher, and it was during this appointment that I first became aware of MusicLeader West Midlands. I attended several singing and choral courses with them, and made good use of the website for finding other training and employment opportunities. For four years I balanced my performing and teaching career, but gradually found that I wanted to move beyond ‘just’ being a peripatetic teacher into a position where I could have more responsibility for policy and decision-making.

It was then that I received information from MusicLeader West Midlands that they had become Regional Programme Managers for the pilot of the Trinity OU KS2 Music CPD Programme, a government-funded nationwide CPD programme for teachers involved in Wider Opportunities. Having just become involved in the delivery of Wider Opportunities myself, I was eager to get involved, and was fortunate that Birmingham Music Service agreed to sponsor my application to become a Mentor for the programme. For the pilot year I mentored 6 teachers, working closely with the MusicLeader team to identify problems and areas for development. At the end of the pilot year, Trinity OU took the decision to employ Area Leaders to replace the Regional Programme Manager organizations, and Kate Adams at MusicLeader suggested that I apply. There were a large number of candidates for the role from right across the country, and I was extremely delighted to be successful in my application and appointed to the role of North West Area Leader.

During my three-year appointment as Area Leader, I worked closely with MusicLeader West Midlands, East Midlands and North West, to disseminate information about the programme to music teachers and community musicians across my region. MusicLeader gave me instant access to a network of the kind of professional music educators that we wanted to target for the programme, and we had many people sign up as practitioners and mentors through this conduit. During this time, I developed project management and marketing skills, was involved in delivering training and presentations, and contributed to the academic materials for the programme as well as writing an article for the National Association of Music Educators. The most exciting aspect of the role was knowing that I was helping other teachers to develop, and as a consequence was raising the standard of music teaching delivered to thousands of pupils – many more than I could ever have impacted on by teaching myself.

After the close of the programme, and the birth of my daughter, I needed to consider creating a more flexible career, which would allow me to work closer to home in Birmingham. I still really enjoyed performing and teaching, and also had a real passion for training and mentoring other teachers, so I wanted a career that could combine all of these areas. With the help of my husband, a financial advisor, I set up my own company ‘Music Education Solutions Ltd’ which offers workshops, training and mentoring to schools, students and teachers. I knew that the products that I had developed for this company were of a high quality, and I believed in myself as a music leader and training deliverer, but had no experience of running a start-up company. Having gained some regular work through my own network of contacts, I realized that it was time to call in outside help to develop my business further, and the obvious choice was again to call on MusicLeader West Midlands for advice.

MusicLeader put on two excellent courses with Barry D’Souza ‘The Music Leaders’ Survival Guide Parts 1 & 2’ aimed at people like me who were changing their career portfolio to adapt to their own circumstances and also to the enormous changes in the sector brought about by the National Plan for Music Education and the creation of Music Hubs. Through these courses I learnt to identify opportunities for the growth of my business, and as soon as I put Barry’s advice into practice, I started to see results, negotiating short-term contracts with a number of organizations with which I already had some connection. However, to be really successful, I needed to bring my services to a wider audience. With Barry’s help, I developed the idea of finding a partner organization to help me offset the costs of running a training course for music teachers from right across Birmingham, the aim being that they would spread the word about me to their own and other schools, generating further work for the company.

At the start of the academic year 2012, things are looking really bright! I am delivering workshops and training in several local authorities, am working on training projects for both the ABRSM and Trinity College London, and am finding time to perform, teach singing and adjudicate for the British and International Federation of Festivals. Although it is an insecure time in terms of funding for both education and the arts, with the help of MusicLeader I have managed to build a secure portfolio career combining all the aspects of being a musician that I really love!