Principal's Welcome
Leeds College of Music (LCoM) is a leading progressive conservatoire, renowned for providing a hub for high quality musical activity, and for preparing versatile, creative, musicians for the world’s cultural industries. LCoM is a member of Conservatoires UK and is the newest and largest British conservatoire, with around one thousand full-time HE and FE students in addition to its community engagement and personal and professional development activities.
Music is at the heart of the world’s cultural industries and our courses in Western classical music, jazz, popular music, and music production, which focus on creativity and versatility, provide excellent springboards into leading roles in the profession. Our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds; they study with top practitioners; and they have the opportunity to work in various professional and quasi-professional contexts, as part of their courses, through an extensive series of industry and community partnerships.
Our degree courses are validated by the University of Bradford, and we work closely with the University to provide enhanced opportunities to both institutions’ postgraduate students and our research programmes. In addition to degree courses, we offer a wide range of personal and professional development provision, and, in partnership with Leeds City College and the Leeds City Council, we will provide a variety of other opportunities to study music and to participate in music-making across the City Region. Our annual professional concert season attracts audiences from across the region and beyond.
Highlights of the last year include the release of a new College CD featuring performances and original compositions by student ensembles, a three-hour BBC live broadcast of student performances from our professional standard concert hall, The Venue, and a win for our Big Band at the Great North Big Band Jazz Festival. There have also been many individual success stories from our former students, and numerous outstanding student performances.
The College occupies modern, purpose-built accommodation in the heart of Leeds’ cultural quarter, close to the BBC, the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Northern Ballet. We have high quality performance and recording facilities, and are constantly investing in our estate, most recently with the refurbishment of our Recital Room. The College is looking forward to becoming an All-Steinway School in September 2011 - the only English conservatoire to hold this coveted status, and one of only two in the UK. We are also investing in an SSL G-series based production studio for the beginning of the 2011/12 academic year, which, again, will be unique in the sector.
The College is a friendly and supportive place, which offers an exciting and unusually wide range of musical opportunities. Here, we are all passionate about music and the capacity it has for improving lives, not only of those who participate directly, but of society as a whole.
Professor Philip Meaden MMus, FRCO, FTCL, Hon FTCL, ARAM
Principal
