A letter to the University of Nottingham

In response to the University of Nottingham’s proposal to suspend all four of its music programmes, Music Mark has written to the University to express our concern and urge reconsideration. As a UK subject association for music, we are committed to championing the value and importance of music education at every level. With our annual conference taking place in Nottingham next week, this development is particularly timely, and we anticipate it will be a significant point of discussion among colleagues gathering from across the UK. The letter below highlights the national policy landscape, the value of Nottingham’s Department of Music, and the wider implications of such a closure for students, staff, and the local community. Read the letter below:

As a UK subject association for music, Music Mark are deeply concerned to hear about the proposed suspension of all four music programmes at the University of Nottingham. The Department of Music at University of Nottingham has maintained a reputation as a source of high quality of research, as evidenced in their REF results. Their four music programmes offer students a broad education across musicology, composition, performance, technology, global music, and society and community, in addition to providing invaluable experiences working with partner organisations across the local area and enriching the musical life of Nottingham.

 

The department has produced a wealth of talented and successful graduates who are proactively shaping music-making and music education in high profile organisations. The partnership with the world-class BBC Concert Orchestra demonstrates the department’s continued commitment to employability, equipping students with the skills to transition into the industry after graduation. Without a department, cultural partnerships will not be sustainable and students will not acquire the skills, knowledge and confidence required to partake in valuable opportunities. If implemented, this proposal would be a tragedy for staff, students, and music in the wider region, and we urge the University Executive Board to reflect, pause and reconsider.

 

We wish to emphasise that the irreversible nature of the closure of a music department is often underappreciated, since the specialist facilities, infrastructure, expertise and community is challenging to reinstate once removed. This seems pertinent given that the government’s current vocal championing of music education will directly and positively impact recruitment at higher education music departments in the near future. Indeed, for this news to come immediately after the Government formally declared its commitment to pre-tertiary music education in the recent Curriculum and Assessment Review brings into question the rationale behind this decision.

 

Music staff use their expertise to lead, fund and support educational projects and activities with the music hubs and numerous schools in the East Midlands region. The department is also a crucial pipeline for music educators in the region, having been one of the first Russell Group universities in the country to embed music education modules in its curriculum. These modules have offered hundreds of students over the years the opportunity to work with local music hubs and schools, and correspondingly a disproportionate number of their graduates have gone on to be music teachers—a significant proportion of whom have remained in the region. The department is therefore crucial to the region’s ecosystem and an essential talent development pipeline, creating and leading unique opportunities in some of the most deprived areas of the UK.

 

Linked to this, the university’s reference to a ‘societal shift’ — which they claim has ‘significantly affected student demand for music degrees over recent years, with changing patterns in how students engage with music education and careers’ — suggests that the Executive Board is not fully aware of educational and economic government initiatives, such as the commitment to a new National Centre for Arts and Music Education (opening in September 2026).

 

Furthermore, the language that the government have used in response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review final report requires special attention. The government describes music as an ‘entitlement’, enrichment as ‘essential’, and access to quality teaching and provision of music as a matter of social justice. However, the university’s statement that they are ‘committed to exploring how [they] can provide opportunities for students to get involved in music as an extracurricular activity’ and that ‘music will continue to play an important part of university life at Nottingham’ demonstrates the opposite point of view, and a lack of awareness of the expertise, dedication and research required to nurture an inclusive music environment, both within the department and across the institution. To state the matter plainly, extracurricular music provision requires the leadership and expertise of academic staff and music students to succeed.

 

Music Mark recognises the financial challenges facing the higher education sector at present, and that there will ultimately be a need for change in many institutions. However, the university’s justification that they must ‘ensure that [they] are academically and financially sustainable for current and future generations, able to respond to student and employer demand and the changing global HE landscape’ does not take into account the renewed governmental investment in the arts, with the creative industries being directly highlighted as one
of eight priority sectors in the government’s Industrial Strategy and with the music industry in the United Kingdom having grown by 5% last year to contribute £8 billion to the economy.

 

Therefore, we urge the university to reconsider their proposal in the wake of recent education policy developments and to recognise the crucial role that music plays in the creative industries. Music Mark would welcome the opportunity to engage in discussions with the University Executive Board at University of Nottingham to further understand the rationale behind their decision.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Bridget Whyte
CEO, Music Mark