A statement of support for the School of Music at Cardiff University

The Executive Committee of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music’s UK & Ireland Branch would like to offer our support to the School of Music at Cardiff University and to register our opposition to its proposed closure.

Cardiff University has announced the start of a consultation whose proposals, if realised, would entail the closure of the School of Music by the end of 2030.  With 234 students Cardiff is the largest university School of Music in Wales and one of the largest in the UK.  Staff and students were given less than 24 hours’ notice of the news, and were offered no opportunity to challenge its evidential basis or put forward counterproposals.

This announcement is all the more perplexing, given that the University places at the heart of its mission ‘championing excellent educational experience for students of all backgrounds and experiences’.  The School achieved 95% overall satisfaction for its teaching in 2024 (National Student Survey), and this amongst a highly diverse cohort of students, more than two-thirds of whom are drawn from widening participation backgrounds.  Its outreach work in schools has reached 400 students in the past month alone.

Cardiff has made important contributions to the popular music studies landscape with its pioneering MA in Music, Culture and Politics, hosting the Cardiff University Pop Collective Ensemble, as well as supporting countless PhD examining original and unique contributions to popular music scholarship. The popular music research output of the department over the years has been of a consistently high standard including the past and present scholarship of prominent IASPM members such as Kenneth Gloag, Sarah Hill and Joseph O’Connell. Cardiff has also played host to the IASPM UK & Ireland main and postgraduate conferences as well demonstrating a clear commitment to supporting popular music studies as a discipline.

The School of Music embodies like few others the University’s strategic focus on ‘Culture, Cynefin, Community’.  It is one of Cardiff’s oldest departments, with a history stretching back to the University’s foundation by Royal Charter in 1883.  Its alumni range from composers Morfydd Owen, Grace Williams, Alun Hoddinott and Sir Karl Jenkins to Sarah Lianne Lewis, Wales’s first female resident composer with the BBC National Orchestra. Alumni performers range from international artists Giselle Allen and Jeremy Huw Williams to singer and presenter Steffan Rhys Hughes and bassist Ursula Harrison (BBC Young Jazz Musician 2024). 75% of its research has been assessed as world-leading in its public impact (REF2021).  It has shown consistent resilience over a century of change, diversifying its offer of course modules, increasing its postgraduate intake, and maintaining cutting-edge and culturally relevant provision from Bachelor’s to PhD level.

We call on the University to reconsider its decision and embrace a strong music offer as essential to the equipping of a future cultural workforce.  We also ask for immediate reassurance that current students and the staff team will be supported and courses maintained whilst further consultation is carried out.

The Committee of The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch