Music students from Bridgwater & Taunton College have successfully secured places at top-flight music schools and have had their work showcased on BBC Music Introducing on Radio 1.
Melissa Fear achieved numerous scholarships and unconditional offers from auditions and interviews. She has accepted an offer at the much sought after Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA), co-founded by Sir Paul McCartney, where she will study a BA in Music. Melissa had the first release of the year on the College record label Brainworks under her artist name Hera, with her song ‘Table Salt’ that was featured on BBC Radio 1. The song is available to purchase and download from iTunes and Spotify. Melissa has performed countless times throughout her two years at Bridgwater & Taunton College, including stealing the show at the Classical Spectacular in April. She also recently achieved a fantastic result in her Grade 5 Music Theory exam and is awaiting the result of the Grade 6 exam that she took during the summer.
Bethany Lewis has been accepted into one of the top music schools in Europe, The Royal Northern College of Music, to study Composition. Places are fiercely competitive, and so in addition to achieving her outstanding grades Bethany has written, composed and performed a collection of musical pieces to accompany several performances for the Drama Academy at the College, and at the Classical Spectacular at the McMillan Theatre her performance of ‘Watching you Walk Away’ was applauded by a full house.
Abi Simmons and Tom Isaac known as musical duo Doll Dull, an electronic mix of bass guitar, sampled beats and chilling vocals, are also on the College record label Brainworks. Their first single ‘Saturn’ was released in April.
Abi said,
“The music programmes here are brilliant and give us lots of chances to perform to audiences. The record label is amazing, we have released singles on Spotify while still at College.”
Doll Dull performed at the annual Future of Music Festival to a packed audience and both Abi and Tom have been accepted into the prestigious Goldsmiths University London, where they will continue their studies in BMus (Hons) Music.
The Future of Music Festival at the McMillan Theatre in May saw students perform and access guest speakers from industry including; Dr Meaker, signed to Circus Records, Andy Menhenitt from Metropolis Studios, record producer Charlie Francis, and they took part in a production workshop from house music DJ & Producer Knightlife .
Bridgwater & Taunton College offers a broad range of musical specialisms within our vocational offer, which follow both the Performance and Technology pathways and are taught in industry-standard facilities including; The McMillan Theatre, five recording studios with a range of digital and analogue recording technologies, four soundproof live rooms for recording with a range of different acoustics, two Mac labs, one editing/production suite, two specialist classrooms and five bookable practice rooms for rehearsals and instrumental lessons. Instruments are available on loan and a Music Bursary supplied by Taunton Maids can help with the cost of instrumental and vocal tuition.
Applications to study Music at Bridgwater & Taunton College in September 2019 are now open and can be made on this website or by calling us on 01278 441234.
