It sounds like hyperbole but studying music at Cambridge really did change my life. The feeling I remember most on arrival in Cambridge was excitement. I had come from a good state school in Lincolnshire, which was lucky to have passionate and committed music teachers. But I couldn’t believe what the Cambridge music faculty was offering. Singing Parsifal in King’s Chapel with Mark Elder conducting. Playing Britten’s War Requiem side-by-side with the Britten Sinfonia. Going to America for the first time in my life with my college choir.
The opportunities were endless - and not just for performing. The rigour and ambition of the music course is something I’m grateful for everyday now. People often question the ‘use’ and ‘value’ of music degrees. But there has been not one day since graduating when I haven’t been grateful for those hours spent learning about Beethoven and French Opera and the Italian Trecento. Believe it or not the latter has actually come up in my day job!
To this day I count myself lucky that I was able to be taught by the music faculty’s stellar line-up of academics and be surrounded by other music students who have gone on to become not just successful performers, or working in music and the arts, but also entrepreneurs, lawyers, teachers.
Harry Hickmore read music and completed an MPhil in musicology at Emmanuel College, 2011-15. Harry is now the Development Director for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, based in Acland Burghley School in London. He is also a Trustee of the Marian Consort and the Chairman of Emmanuel’s alumni society, the Emmanuel Society.
Prior to the OAE, Harry worked at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, Wilton's Music Hall and English National Opera. He has written for The Telegraph, The Stage, The Independent and HuffPost on arts philanthropy, culture policy, audiences and education.
