Resilience for Hubs: How to be a music education “entrepreneur”

Nigel is an honours graduate of Durham University and gained a Master’s from Manchester University. After teaching music in schools he was appointed Head of Bolton Music Service aged twenty-eight and, five years later, became Shropshire’s County Music Adviser providing professional development for school teachers, leading the county’s music service and working as an accredited OFSTED inspector. He joined Staffordshire County Council as Music and Performing Arts Inspector, then becoming Head of Staffordshire Performing Arts (now Entrust’s Music and Performing Arts Services). He held concurrent roles of deputy head of the council’s school improvement service, and subsequently head of its cultural development division.

Nigel led the consortium of organisations, that established “Make Some Noise” the Youth Music Action Zone for Staffordshire/Stoke on Trent and was Chair of its Board 2003 – 2010. He headed the government funded Staffordshire Music Partnership in 2008 in which SPA was principal partner. In 2012 Nigel led the successful bid to Arts Council England for DfE funding to create the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Music Education Partnership, one of the 123 music education hubs in England.First elected as the West Midlands representative of the Federation of Music Services (FMS) in 2010 Nigel became FMS Chair in 2012. He worked closely with colleagues from FMS and the National Association of Music Educators to merge the two organisations to form “The UK Association for Music Education – Music Mark” in March 2013 and is its inaugural Chair of Trustees. He has also served on the board of trustees/directors of Manchester Camerata, Sound It Out Community Music, Birmingham and Blythe Bridge Music Foundation Trust School. Nigel’s reputation as an innovative conductor is well known, working with professional, amateur and youth orchestras, bands and choirs around the UK and abroad. He was founder conductor of the first International Youth Philharmonic with colleagues from Germany and France and has premiered new works by composers such as Bedford, Gregson, Horovitz, Stanhope, Vine and Woolfenden. He is now in great demand as a freelance music education consultant and guest conductor here and overseas.