We write, as the UK’s oldest and most prestigious learned society for Music, in shock at the announcement that Cardiff University is contemplating closing its School of Music by the end of 2030. The School of Music is – and has been for a long time – a leading institution for research in our discipline. The two most recent REF exercises (2014, 2021) tell a compelling story, showing an average of 80% world-leading and internationally-leading research. The esteem in which current staff and recent emeriti are held (including several fellows of the Learned Society of Wales, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, and many members in leading positions in UK academia and music associations) tells a further one. Few schools or departments of music across the UK can boast more genuinely than Cardiff of sustained research excellence across such a broad range of sub-disciplines, including musicology, performance, composition, and ethnomusicology, or demonstrate a warmer, more intellectually stimulating environment for research. These attributes were amply on display at the Royal Musical Association’s Research Students Conference hosted professionally, collegially and with supreme efficiency by the School of Music in January 2024. It was, without doubt, one of the best, most enriching RMA conferences of recent times.
Teaching and education at the School of Music are also outstanding, with an overall satisfaction rating of 95% in the most recent National Student Survey (2024). In spite of significant challenges in the Higher Education music sector in recent years, Cardiff has maintained its student numbers, and refuses to rest on its laurels as the largest university music division in Wales. Moving agilely to accommodate student expectations around employability, and attentive to the real-life value of studying music, the school’s music business scheme has connected the university to around 100 industry organizations across the UK.
Removing the School of Music will rip the heart out of music education in Wales and impoverish the country’s cultural life more generally. According to HESA data, more than 73% of all students studying music as an academic subject in Wales (as opposed to music as a practical or vocational subject) are enrolled at the Cardiff University School of Music. Attracting more than two thirds of its students from widening participation backgrounds, moreover, provides a shining example to us all of how maintaining the highest educational standards and effecting important social change are richly complementary not remotely contradictory exercises. The diverse, far-reaching accomplishments in teaching and education could only have been achieved by a strong, wholeheartedly engaged and committed university music division. The Cardiff University School of Music is manifestly not in competition with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama; the two institutions have different approaches to music education with different pedagogical methods, catering to a different type of student and often different career pathways. It is, indeed, one of Cardiff’s strengths as a city that it produces such a breadth of Music graduates as a positive result of the co-existence of the two institutions.
It is difficult to imagine a more balanced, highly accomplished and cohesive school of music than the one currently operating so creatively and effectively at Cardiff. Given its achievements, and great promises for future research, educational and societal work, the school’s closure would mark nothing less than a tragedy for music in Wales and for the UK Music Higher Education sector. During the current consultation period, then, we urge the University to reconsider its plans. We ask you to allow the School to develop its own alternative proposals, so that it can continue to play a vital role in the strategic priorities of the University and to contribute to the wider Welsh and UK cultural sector and economy. The School of Music is a wonderful asset to Cardiff University, and deserves full, unwavering support in the years and decades ahead.
The Royal Musical Association
February 2025