Assistant Director of Music

The new position of an Assistant Director of Music for both King Edward’s School (KES) and King Edward VI High School for Girls (KEHS) marks a further development in the already extremely close collaboration of the outstanding Music departments of these two great schools. 

Reporting to both of the two Directors of Music, the Assistant Director of Music will play an important role in leading the development of the co-curricular side of the departments’ work.

Almost all of that co-curricular activity is already joint between the two schools. Orchestras, choirs and other ensembles are made up of both boys and girls. Performances, of which there are a great number and great variety, are made up of both boys and girls, and are led by teachers from both schools. Planning and organisation of this extraordinary output is already a joint enterprise.

This new post of Assistant Director of Music (ADM), our first joint teaching appointment across both schools, marks a step forward in the further development of even closer links between us. The ADM’s role will be to bring vision, energy and leadership to the development of that co-curricular work, and its role both in the development of our students, their skills and talents, but also the importance of music to the wider cultural life and character of the school community. The role will develop our great musical heritage, while being open to new ideas, new ways of working, and new partnerships and relationships.

The two Independent Schools are the lead schools in the Foundation of Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, which now also comprises six state-funded selective grammar and five comprehensive state schools. The Foundation’s mission is “make Birmingham the best place to be educated in the UK”. The ADM position will play a key role in making that true of music, and part of the role will be to strengthen and develop our existing Partnerships relationships.

Alongside helping to lead co-curricular music and, in part, to delivering it, the ADM will contribute to the development of outstanding curriculum music teaching in both schools. The make-up of that timetable will be adapted to the successful candidate’s experience. These are two highly academic schools, and the music departments are no exception. Our curriculums are ambitious and wide-ranging, our examinations numbers strong, and we currently have students reading undergraduate and post-graduate music at the universities of Oxford, Durham, Manchester, and Chicago. The standard of performance is exceptional and a highlight is the biennial concert at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. 

Above all, the ADM will be an exceptional musician, able to inspire young people, and with the intellectual heft to work with some of the cleverest and most ambitious young musicians in the country.

The Music Departments

The close musical collaboration between these two great schools started in 1960, when the KES/KEHS Symphony Orchestra was founded. The early collaboration helped to form David Munrow, Maggie Faultless, Paul Griffiths, and Stanley Myers; more recent alumni now lead the Hallé Orchestra (Robbie Ruisi), won Young Musician in 2018 (Lauren Zhang), and won the Benslow Young Composers’ Competition and the National Centre for Early Music Composition Prize in 2022 (Christopher Churcher). Music is at the heart of the two schools’ lives, is central to our partnership work and plays an important role in our city.

KES/KEHS Symphony continues to be one of the great symphony orchestra for young people – 88 strong this year – performing full orchestral programmes each year. In the last five seasons, the joint orchestra’s repertoire has included symphonies by Mahler, Shostakovich, Brahms and Beethoven. There are three major choirs and a joint choral society, and in them about 270 girls, boys, and staff sing together each week. Recent performances have included Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Jenkins’s The Armed Man. There are two swing bands, two further orchestras, two wind bands, and a thriving programme of chamber music (works by Brahms, Bridge, and Barber this year). The department also supports musical theatre performances in collaboration with the Drama department: recent shows include “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Chicago”.

King Edward’s School and King Edward VI High School for Girls stage about 30 concerts, platforms and recitals each year, in the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre, our home base, a world-class performance venue, as well as Symphony Hall, Birmingham, the University of Birmingham concert halls, and churches and cathedrals in our city.

How to apply

Visit one of our websites to download an application form and further information about the schools: https://kehs.org.uk/vacancies/assistant-director-music or https://kes.org.uk/about-us/vacancies/assistant-director-of-music/. Completed application forms should be submitted with a covering letter by 9am on Wednesday 15th February 2023 to recruitment@kes.org.uk.

King Edward’s School and King Edward VI High School for Girls are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Applicants invited to interview will be required to provide proof of identity, preferably a birth certificate, although where this is not available we will accept other forms of ID. Online searches will also be carried out for all shortlisted candidates, as required by Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022. Successful candidates will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and other pre-employment checks. A copy of the Schools’ Recruitment, Selection and Disclosure Policies are available on the website www.kes.org.uk and www.kehs.org.uk.