The Role
The Director of Music (entitled Master/Mistress of Music) is a post with overall responsibility for musical activity in Winchester College, a historic school founded by William of Wykeham (himself a keen musician) in 1382, with a choral foundation at its heart. Former holders of the post have included Sir George Dyson, while the post of College Organist has been filled by eminent musicians and composers such as Thomas Weelkes, Jeremiah Clarke, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, and Sydney Watson. The College libraries include a number of manuscripts and part books of scholarly interest.
The Director of Music has overall responsibility for the teaching of music at all levels in the School and ensuring pupils are given opportunities to develop the necessary skills and experience required of 21st century musicians.
The Director of Music is a member of the School’s Senior Management Team. They will be responsible to the Headmaster and Bursar via the Second Master.
The Director of Music will be expected to lead by example for both staff and pupils and will be required to work directly with pupils on a regular basis in both academic and performance-based collaborations. They will be an outstanding and inspirational leader, around whom the full-time staff will fit, and to whom all sympathetic and talented students will enthusiastically respond. They must be sufficiently expert and confident to conduct at a high level.
The Department consists of five full-time teachers and one part-time teacher, each with a reputation in their field, Benjamin Cunningham (Chapel Organist), David Hurley (Head of Singing), Howard Ionascu (Head of Chapel Music), Nicholas Salwey (Head of Piano), Oliver Tarney (Head of Composition and Academic Music) and James Toll (Head of Strings), assisted by fifty visiting Music teachers, and a full-time administrator.
Facilities are outstanding, and centre on the Music School, a listed building designed by Edward Prior, built in 1904 and very substantially extended a century later. Concerts also take place in New Hall, the College Chapel, and Winchester Cathedral, with which the school enjoys a close relationship. Pupils have access to over sixty pianos (including five Steinways), four organs (two mechanical and two electronic), and fifty-five practice rooms. We do not take pupils out of academic lessons for their instrumental lessons, the result being that the facilities and the opportunities for practice are possibly unrivalled, in order to be able to teach the vast majority of these lessons on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
Around 650 individual instrumental lessons are taught each week, and the Music Award auditions each January provide a ready supply of high-quality musicians, many of them former Cathedral choristers. These Music Awards are keenly competed for, both at 13+ and for entry to the Sixth Form. Many of our musicians will gain diplomas during their time there, many both at Associate and at Licentiate level: last term, fourteen pupils were successful in their diploma recitals.
Numbers taking the subject at GCSE and A-level are strong, as are applications to read Music at University, and the results are excellent, but the school’s emphasis is undoubtedly on music for all. Ensembles are numerous: in addition to chamber groups, there is a Wind Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra, Percussion Ensemble, two Rock Bands, Junior String Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and a 70-strong Symphony Orchestra whose recent repertoire has included Brahms’ 4th Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony, whilst also accompanying our pupils in Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Liszt and Prokofiev’s 1st Piano Concertos and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto. The latter performances are for the winners of the annual Concerto Competition each February, a keenly contested event.
Vocal ensembles include two for younger pupils, St Michael’s Choir and Voces (singing sacred and secular repertoire respectively), VocSoc and Cantores Episcopi (close harmony groups), and the Chapel Choir, which regularly makes recordings, broadcasts on Radio 3, and tours overseas. Uniquely, Winchester College still maintains its own choral foundation with trebles, known as Quiristers, educated at Pilgrims’ School, and with lower parts provided by senior boys. The College has produced many outstanding singers, including Charles Brett, David Clegg, James Gilchrist, David Hurley, Ben Hulett and Ashley Riches. The Glee Club meets each week to prepare for performances of large-scale choral works with orchestra (most recently Brahms’ Requiem and Haydn’s Creation), and the annual House Singing Competition is a major event in the school’s calendar with all pupils participating.
From 2022, the school (which currently consists of boy boarders only) will admit day boys and girls into its sixth form, with two girls boarding houses opening from 2024. It is already clear that a large number of new applicants are attracted to the College by its musical traditions and opportunities and a substantial increase in the quantity and quality of musicmaking is anticipated.
Following the retirement this summer of the previous Master of Music, David Thomas (formerly Headmaster of Reigate Grammar School and The Purcell School), Dr Nick Salwey is currently the Acting Director of Music. The College now seeks an outstanding musician, with high quality performing skills, and a reputation for inspiring young people, to lead a new phase in the school’s musical history.
There are no preconceptions about the successful candidate in either their instrument, or their academic record.
They will find in Winchester outstanding facilities, bright pupils, committed colleagues and a rare set of opportunities within one of the world’s most distinguished, beautiful and famous of schools.
Key Responsibilities
Key Qualities
The successful candidate will be/have:
Benefits and Terms of Service
Salary
Winchester College has its own generous salary scale, which is above the national scale. In addition to salary, the school allocates a Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) to those with additional roles such as the head of subject, which will be negotiated at the appropriate level. This appointment will commence on 1 September 2022.
Accommodation
Accommodation may be available.
Induction and Continuous Training
The school is fully committed to the induction and training of all staff. All staff are well supported when they arrive, with help and advice available from Heads of Department, Housemaster/mistress, and the Director of Studies, who has specific responsibility for overseeing the induction process.
All members of the Common Room are encouraged to subscribe to external CPD courses. In addition, we deliver a range of training, run by both our own staff and external providers, ranging from highly practical First Aid courses to seminars and learning lunches on many aspects of teaching and learning.
There is an annual cycle of appraisal offering the opportunity to reflect on professional practice and development opportunities.
Private Health Care and Pension
The successful applicant will be enrolled in the school’s Corporate Health Scheme in accordance with the current rules of the Scheme. Membership of the Scheme does not extend to family members and is a taxable benefit in kind.
Pension, and Life Cover (4 times salary) are part of the package
Probation, Notice Periods
The first twenty-four months of employment will be a probationary period. Regular reviews with line managers take place over the probation period with the opportunity to discuss progress, identify any areas for action and ensure that there is appropriate guidance and support in place to enable successful completion of the probationary period.
During the probationary period, the notice required by either party to terminate employment will be eight weeks. Once employment is confirmed, the notice period will increase to one full term.
Disclosure Check
As Winchester College is an educational establishment, a condition of employment will be that the successful candidate must consent to the school obtaining an Enhanced Level Disclosure check through the Disclosure and Barring Service. This will reveal all spent and unspent convictions, warnings, cautions and bind-overs. A policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders is available on the school’s website.
Safeguarding is one of the prime responsibilities of this role. The jobholder’s responsibility for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young persons for whom they are responsible, or with whom they come into contact with, will be to adhere to and ensure compliance with the school’s Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy at all times. A Housemaster/mistress should be conversant with the responsibilities and procedures detailed in this policy and with the Department for Education’s Keeping Children Safe in Education. If, in the course of carrying out the duties of the post, the Housemaster/mistress becomes aware of any actual or potential risks to the safety or welfare of children in the school, they must report any concerns to the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead or in his/her absence the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead.
References and Other Pre-employment Checks
The appointment will be dependent on the receipt of a successful medical check and satisfactory references. The College will usually seek references from shortlisted candidates before interview and may approach previous employers for information to verify particular experience or qualifications. At least one referee must be the current or most recent employer. Where applicants are not currently working with children but have done so in the past, one referee must be the person by whom they were most recently employed when working with children.
Data Protection
Winchester College collects and processes relevant personal data as part of its everyday operations and is obliged to process it in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. The school is the Data Controller of this data under the Act and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office; its registration number is Z5751669.
Any queries about this policy or how personal data is processed by the school should be referred to the Data Protection Liaison Officer.