Job of the Week: Professor of composition at £44 an hour
NewsAt the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester they are setting their fees low:
Salary Grade: £44.30 to £54.44 per hour (dependent on experience) (pending Pay Review)
Closing date: 12 Noon, Tuesday 6th August 2024
Interview date: Friday 16th August 2024
Applications are invited for a professor (Tutor) in the School of Composition. The appointee will be a composer with extensive professional experience. The appointee will have appropriate teaching experience in higher education, or other specialist composition teaching experience.
While an essential area of experience will be acoustic instrumental and vocal composition, additional and complementary areas of expertise might include electronic music, experimental music, and/or composition for theatre, dance, screen, and video game.
The appointee will be expected to deliver one-to-one composition lessons at undergraduate and postgraduate level, potentially some small group teaching, and may be called on to contribute to auditions, examination, and seminars as required.
The post is initially for approximately 6-8 hours a week during term time.
Informal enquiries should be directed to Dr Larry Goves: Larry.Goves@rncm.ac.uk.
“While an essential area of experience will be acoustic instrumental and vocal composition, additional and complementary areas of expertise might include electronic music, experimental music, and/or composition for theatre, dance, screen, and video game.”
This makes the announcement look not very serious. According to what is heard in the concert halls nowadays of officially-groomed new music, one gets the strong impression that of all the places where young compositional talents could develop, music colleges, conservatories and universities are the least likely ones.
Oh, Royal Northern, what a jest,
Your pay set low, we’re not impressed!
Call for talent, bright and vast,
Yet offer pennies? What a blast!
A composer of note, you seek to find,
With skills that leave the rest behind.
Acoustic, electronic, experimental flair,
For pennies, will they even care?
Teach the young with expertise,
You ask for gold, but pay in cheese.
Six to eight hours, what a load,
For wages that barely soften the road.
Auditions, exams, seminars too,
Do you think your staff are fools?
Talented pros to bend and flex,
For pocket change, oh the pretext!
A charming jest, a merry mirth,
Expecting stars for half their worth.
Manchester’s call, but hear the plea,
Value our craft, set us free!
Less than fifty-four quid per hour’s grace,
For teaching brilliance with a straight face.
Dear college, wake from this delusion bright,
Or lose your stars to a juster light.
Just out of curiosity: if a violinist is taking lessons from a private teacher in Manchester, how much does that teacher charge per hour?
Not bad, some conservatoires pay as low as £29/hr for a similar role.
No, not bad at all. More than many composers earn in a year from performances, recordings and broadcasts.
It’s 1p more than what Purcell pays its instrumental staff!
Is that low? £54 a week x 8 hours is almost £13,000 for the year – presuming that the College is only in session for 30 weeks. A full time equivalent salary at that hourly rate would be over 100k. Hard to say that’s a low… (and not bad considering the tripe these composers come out with!!)
We should assume that the successful applicant would enjoy (sic) the status of a freelance or self-employed individual.
Deduct social security as well as various taxes, and a maximum of 2/3 of the hourly rate is left.
Current inflation here in the UK, along with rent for housing or mortgage payments on a property, plus amenities like gas/water/electricity, not to mention crippling council tax, mean that £120 per hour might just make life livable.
I think this is unlikely – HMRC really tightened up on working off payroll (IR35). To be honest, I imagine most musicians (who will be freelancing other roles) would prefer to be paid as self-employed here and sort their own tax, but usually the conservatoire will insist on putting them on payroll and making deductions.
source: worked at 3 conservatoires
Just recruit more Asian students to raise teachers’ salaries
I can imagine an ageing rock star being appointed for this.
(S)he will not be concerned about the money, will relish the short hours and bask in the kudos of being an official music college professor.
The college will delight in the prestige and drawing power of a big name on its faculty.
Roger Waters springs to mind, although I think that Elton John is better qualified.
A Spinal Tap sequel is in production. They could have a lot of fun with this idea. Imagine Nigel tutoring students on the significance of 11.
Your passion for your subject matter shines through in every post. It’s clear that you genuinely care about sharing knowledge and making a positive impact on your readers. Kudos to you!
Fish and chips that day you taught your student!
These types of positions are becoming more and more common as the attack on the arts continues. German “Hochschulen” have been following this tend for years now. Allowing professorships to expire and replacing them with “Lehraufträge”. It is a fraction of the cost and the person is expected to do the same job….pretty sad.
Could it be that there might be other factors determining a salary other than a bunch of numbers some people think ought to be about right?
OK if you live a couple of minutes walk away and have nothing better to do on those days. It’s a lower rate than some of the London independent schools pay for one to one instrumental tuition. Maybe someone will do it for profile and exposure from student influencers!!!
The “profile and exposure” arising from a prestigious post at an élite conservatoire is potentially a very shrewd investment notwithstanding uncompetitive pay… it may enable the postholder to charge a significantly higher rate to private pupils (I have heard rumours of some conservatoire professors with private rates above £200 per hour, although I suspect that only a small number of very enterprising, very accomplished, and very well connected people achieve such giddy heights), and (for the postholder willing to travel) elicit lucrative masterclass and “summer school” engagements (although I have also heard suggestions that such gigs are not that lucrative unless you want a free holiday in the area being visited).