University of Wales, Bangor

University of Wales, Bangor

'People tend to think of Bangor as a backwater,' admits Thomas Schmidt-Beste, head of the school of music at the University of Wales, Bangor. 'But the school of music certainly isn't one.'

Bangor is one of the smallest cities in the UK and sits between the Snowdonia Mountains and beautiful North Wales coastline. But Schmidt-Beste is keen to play down its location: 'The university has for a long time sold itself mostly by how beautiful this place is and the quality of life. But it is actually a serious academic university - and the university is now getting around to marketing itself along those lines.'

Schmidt-Beste joined the university from his native Germany in 2005 and was appointed head of the school of music in January 2006. The school intrigued him, he says, because 'it's a small place but does a lot of different things, and does them well'. He cites musicology and composition as two of the school's strongest academic areas, though it also houses dedicated institutes for the study of sacred music and Welsh music studies. This March it introduced a further centre for early music - another specialist area.

Although most undergraduates take performance in their first year, the school also has a strong academic focus: 'We have a strong performance programme but if you look at the staffing profile and the modules we offer it is an academic institution,' says Schmidt-Beste.

'As soon as I graduated, there were already many options open to me, but I chose to carry on studying here because of this support'

Each year around 55 undergraduates join one of two programmes: the music BA, which can also be studied as joint honours with a foreign language for example, or the more popular BMus, which is devoted entirely to music. The school's postgraduate community of around 25 is made up of MPhil or PhD research students and those on taught MA, MMus or postgraduate diploma courses.

The school has its own dedicated building, which houses the Peter-Crossley Holland Collection of 300 world instruments, a music library, lecture hall and rooms, practice rooms, four electroacoustic studios and two concert halls - the 200-seat Powis Hall and the larger Pritchard-Jones Hall. A new arts complex is scheduled for construction within the next decade, however, and will deliver a new music building as well as a redeveloped Theatre Gwynedd, the university's main performance space.

Twenty-three-year-old composer Owain Llwyd, from Glyndyfrdwy in North Wales, graduated with first class honours from the BMus course and is now continuing at the school with a PhD in composition for film and TV. 'The support I have had has been tremendous,' he says. 'As soon as I graduated, there were already many options open to me, but I chose to carry on studying here because of this support.'

Llwyd reels off a host of opportunities he has received through the school, including composing for short films, working on documentaries, pitching for advertisements, and working with the North Wales-based Sain record label as well as with young performers such as Dewi Ellis Jones and O Duo. He has also set up a new module - composing for film and media - which is delivered in Welsh.

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