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Composer Help Page
Here are some resources and contacts within the classical music industry.
Useful Industry Bodies
Funders/grants/research/opportunities
- Arts Council England – Information on Applying to Grants for the Arts
- BASCA – British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors
- BASCA Report on Equality and Diversity in New Music Commissioning (pdf)
- BBC [Classical] Introducing supports emerging and UK-based classical music performers and composers. Upload your best performances and compositions to BBC Introducing and get your music heard. We are asking classical musicians and composers to upload recordings of their performances or compositions via the BBC Introducing Uploader. The BBC Radio 3 team will download them, listen and decide on the best tracks to play with further opportunities on the network.
- Help Musicians UK
- Musicians’ Union
- Paul Hamlyn Foundation: Funding directory for visual artists and composers
- Sound and Music: Composers’ Toolkit
- Women in Music: Competitions and opportunities:
Publishers
Great art needs to reflect the society from which it emerges.Alan Davey – Controller, BBC Radio 3
- Music Publishers Association: directory of MPA members This usefully allows you to filter a search by genre of music and specifies which publishers accept unsolicited material
- Boosey & Hawkes
- Edition Peters
- Faber Music
- Music Sales Classical
- Schott Music Publishing
- United Music Publishing
- Universal Music Publishing Classical
Performing Groups
- Association of British Orchestras
- OrchestraNET – Symphony Orchestras in the UK
- Orchestras in the UK – BBC NB: this page has been ‘archived’ but is otherwise a useful list…
- Musical Chairs – Orchestras and opera houses in the UK
- UK Amateur Orchestras
- Orchestra List – Morgensterns
- ACMP – The Chamber Music Network
Education
There are many UK-based universities, conservatoires and colleges which offer the study of composition at higher education level. Here are a few of them…
- University of Birmingham
- Birmingham Conservatoire
- University of Bristol
- University of Cambridge
- Cardiff University
- Durham University
- Goldsmiths, University of London
- Guildhall School of Music & Drama
- University of Hull
- Leeds College of Music
- University of Leeds
- University of Liverpool
- London College of Creative Media
- The University of Manchester
- Newcastle University
- The University of Nottingham
- Open College of the Arts
- University of Oxford
- Queen’s University, Belfast
- Royal Academy of Music
- Royal College of Music
- Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- Royal Holloway University of London
- Royal Northern College of Music – Music Conservatoire
- Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
- University of Salford
- University of Sheffield
- University of Southampton
- University of Surrey
- Trinity Laban
- University of York
Shirley J Thompson's Timeline
Click here for composer and conductor Shirley J Thompson's Timeline: Towards a Legacy of African, Caribbean & Asian Classical Composers 1480 - 1940
Speakers from Radio 3’s Diversity and Inclusion in Composition Conference
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Shirley J Thompson's Timeline
A selected index of African, Caribbean & Asian Classical Composers 1480 - 1940
