Follow in The Beatles' footsteps at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts was founded by Sir Paul McCartney to prepare music students for the real world
By Steve McCormack
Published: 22 March 2007
The Merseyside accent might have its detractors as far as the spoken word is concerned, but when Liverpudlians break into song, the reaction couldn't be more different. The city that gave the world The Beatles has retained a reputation for the composition and performance of popular music every bit as prestigious as that enjoyed by Milan and Vienna in their own branches of the art.
It's no surprise, then, that the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (Lipa) is about to throw open its doors to a term's worth of weekly evening classes designed to give the city's ordinary citizens a chance to sing with the flair and gusto that characterises much of life in the city of "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields".
The singing course is one of seven new short performing arts courses offered by Lipa, as part of its policy of broadening local access. Auditions are underway, with the bar set, on singing ability, as high as it is for undergraduates.
"People have to be of a certain standard, and capable of holding a tune on their own," says Kaya Herstad, one of two singing tutors running the course. "This is basically exactly the same module as first year undergraduates do, so we have to keep standards up."
Music, usually with singing alongside, is the core artistic discipline underpinning the majority of the programmes: hardly surprising since Lipa's lead patron is Sir Paul McCartney. It was his support, and donation of £3m, that helped bring Lipa into existence a decade ago, housed in the converted central Liverpool building where he and George Harrison went to secondary school in the Fifties.
Of the nine BA degrees on offer, all validated by Lipa's neighbour, Liverpool John Moores University, the music degrees have the most students. Of the 570 current undergraduates, 140 are studying towards either a BA Music, which includes recording techniques and sound-desk operation alongside composition and playing, or a BA Performing Arts (Music), which mixes in elements of dancing and acting. The rest are spread around seven other degree courses, covering acting, dance, sound technology and entertainment management.
"We are very industry focused," says Martin Isherwood, Lipa's head of music, underlining his department's rigorous concentration on giving students the experience they'll need to make a career out of music. Among the teaching staff are several people who've done just that, including Keith Mullen, lead guitarist from the Liverpool band, The Farm, and Ed Lundon, founder member of fellow Liverpudlian group, China Crisis. Between them, these two, still active in the professional music scene, have sold 12 million records.
Last year, Lipa celebrated its first real sign that at least some of its students are capable of similar success. Former student Sandi Thom, who graduated in Performing Arts (Music) in 2003, went to number one with her debut single I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair). And there's every chance of further success, since Lipa students for the last two years have scooped the Musicians Benevolent Fund songwriters award, the most recent winner being singer songwriter Hannah Rockcliffe (see box).
Although the focus is firmly on modern music, there's an eclectic mix of talent in the student body. Alongside the guitar, piano and drum specialists there are plenty of traditional instrumentalists: two cellists and two harpists for example, and similar diversity in the musical creations emerging.
"We have students who write ringtones for mobile phones and music for computer games, as well as a classical cello player writing hip-hop," says Isherwood.
"We just want our graduates to make a success by earning a living doing what they love," he adds.
And that link to the realities of the entertainment economy characterise the whole LIPA approach. From the outset, Mark Featherstone-Witty, co-founder and current principal, has stressed the need to help students avoid pigeonholing themselves in one area.
"The advice I was given when I created Lipa with Paul, was that for students aiming at a sustained career in arts and entertainment, single skill training was, and remains, high risk.
"Our approach is to provide a holistic curriculum, which combines performance, technical innovation, business awareness and intellectual development. This is the mix of skills that can sustain a career in the competitive world."
It's a formula building a reputation for success. There are currently 1,000 applicants chasing about 50 places on music degree courses starting in the autumn.
'The course covers everything connected with the process'
Hannah Rockcliffe, 20, in the final year of her BA music degree, is one of Lipa's latest success stories. At the end of last year, she won the Musicians Benevolent Fund Songwriters Award, a competition for students on modern music degree courses. In the final, she performed two of her own songs, accompanied by a band consisting entirely of current and former Lipa students.
From as far back as I can remember, I knew I wanted to study music at university, but linked closely to the modern music industry, and Lipa is one of the very few places you can do that.
What's so good is that the course covers everything connected with the process. You need to be able to manage yourself, promote yourself as well as master the skills of production and performance.
One third of the whole music course is performance, and we have frequent gig nights here. My instruments are piano, guitar, a bit of jazz saxophone, and my voice, which, of course, is an instrument in its own right.
Another great thing about Lipa is that you're being taught by people who are living what they are teaching. It's their life.
I haven't found anything on the course hard, except perhaps the dissertation, which I'm writing at the moment: 6,000 words on "What is Black Music and why are white people attracted to it?".
That's quite a lot of words for a musician!
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