MU members currently working at Nottingham University are asked to contact us. Photo: Shutterstock.
The MU has written an open letter to the University of Nottingham’s leadership team regarding the University’s recent decision to suspend its music courses for new entrants.
Suspending music courses will have a devastating impact on musical life at the University, as well as future courses, job, and career opportunities across Nottingham and the wider East Midlands.
Our open letter to the University
We are writing to you on behalf of the Musicians’ Union to express our deep concern regarding the University’s decision to suspend its music courses for new entrants.
As we understand things, this decision threatens to end a century of tradition of the University offering its unique music education syllabus in the heart of the East Midlands. Further, and alarmingly, the announcement to suspend music courses reportedly precedes proposed plans to permanently close all music degrees at the University.
Since this decision was made, we have been contacted by numerous past and present students, professionals, and beneficiaries of the course – MU members and non-members alike – to ask us to object to this decision. Indeed, we note that the petition organised by students, and at the time of writing, has quickly reached 14,000 signatories and continues to grow, reflecting wider feeling across the community.
The University of Nottingham ending these courses will signal the dismantling of a thriving academic and cultural institution. It will severely diminish musical life at the University as well as future courses, job, and career opportunities across Nottingham and the wider East Midlands. We fail to see how this, along with ripping apart the University’s musical leadership, which serves local communities and provides support to the regional music stakeholders’ group connecting over 30 local arts organisations and charities, will serve the region’s ambitions to promote growth and tackle inequality.
The impact on those taking music courses over the years has been dramatic. It has been reported that music graduates from the University have taken up leadership roles within the country’s leading arts organisations, fostering creativity and growth within the UK’s dynamic creative industries. This includes UK Music, Creative UK, the BBC, National Youth Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Naxos Records, Sound Connections, Birmingham Opera Company, Opera North, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Albert Hall, BIMM, Soundcastle, IMG Artists, Kobalt Music, Buxton Opera House, Sinfonia Viva, Boosey & Hawkes, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press etc.
What’s more, the University’s music department is a centre of world-leading research, using music to explore and address complex societal and global challenges. The department is also renowned for its expertise in composition, music history and culture, performance, creative technology, opera, jazz, musical theatre and film music. This all amounts to vital influence and reputation building for the University of Nottingham that will be lost forever if this decision is not reversed and music courses are not guaranteed for the future.
The proposals also mention developing the University’s extra-curricular music programme as an alternative to offering courses. We would argue that this is just a smokescreen because without a vibrant music department at the heart of this, any new extra-curricular activities are likely to have a very limited impact on university life and will flounder in any case.
The MU has pledged to work with those committed to reversing this decision, and we are already in discussion with several stakeholder groups who will be affected by this. Alongside these groups, we urge the University to not only reverse its decision to suspend its music courses, but also to guarantee the provision of its music courses in the years to come.
We are of course happy to engage with your leadership team on this matter in an attempt to seek a mutually agreeable resolution that will see music courses continue in The University of Nottingham.
State school music education is facing an existential crisis
MU Midlands Regional Organiser Stephen Brown said:
“This development is sadly symptomatic of a wider malaise in music education, which has seen university after university axe music courses as state school music education – the talent pipeline for such university courses – experiences an existential crisis.
“On a wider note, the arts sector in the East Midlands has witnessed cuts of over 30% since 2010. It is up to the Government to step up and provide the funding for music education and the arts to stem this depressing tide of news and support the arts in the regions."
The MU is also supporting a Change.org petition, launched by University of Nottingham students, calling for the suspension of music courses to be stopped. Sign and share it here.