Groupwork, Arts Administration & Project Management - MUS00115M

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  • Department: Music
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26

Module summary

This module introduces key organisational and administrative elements of community music practice, including fundraising, project planning and management, and develops professional skills applicable to a wide range of roles and settings within this field.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

Within this module, you will develop skills and knowledge relating to the management of people and projects. Topics covered will include: evidence-based project planning, developing partnerships, fundraising, business models and planning, writing and maintaining relevant policies, and managing organisational risk. There will also be a focus on group dynamics, developing theoretical and practical understanding of how teams work and interact.

This module will develop your professional skills and personal management abilities, including explorations of practitioner wellbeing, networking skills, managing CVs and portfolios, making job applications and understanding a range of community music workplaces and roles.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module you should be able to:

  • Use team-working models and group dynamics theories in musical settings;

  • Develop an evidence-based project proposal, which clearly identifies the rationale for the project, its aims and activities, costs, potential risks, and details of how the project will be monitored and evaluated;

  • Pitch for funding for a community music project using written and spoken approaches;

  • Think, debate and write critically about at least one aspect of organisational and individual management.

  • Communicate your professional skillsets and experiences in written and spoken forms, in order to develop professional networks and opportunities.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

One of the following, to form 100% of the module assessment:

  • 3000-word evidence-based project proposal

  • 3000-word essay

Alternative options for those with relevant prior experience, with the approval of module leader only, and subject to availability of examiners for any live element:

  • 2000-word workshop plan with contextual annotations/commentary

  • 3000-word workshop evaluation based on observation

  • Practical workshop accompanied by 1000-word contextual commentary

  • Composition with a focus on groupwork (scores/instructions/recordings as appropriate to the type of composition), accompanied by 1000-word contextual commentary

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.

Indicative reading

Benson, Jarlath. 2000. Working More Creatively with Groups. New York: Routledge.

Byrnes, William J, and Aleksandar Brkic´, eds. 2020. The Routledge Companion to Arts Management. Abingdon and New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

De Bono, Edward. 2016. Six Thinking Hats. Penguin.

Jancovich, Leila. 2023. Failures in Cultural Participation. 2023. Cham: Springer International Publishing/Palgrave Macmillan.

Lonie, Douglas. 2018. ‘Measuring Outcomes and Demonstrating Impact: Rhetoric and Reality in Evaluating Participatory Music Interventions’. In The Oxford Handbook of Community Music, edited by Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Lee Higgins, 281–98. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Talgam, Itay. 2015. The Ignorant Maestro: How Great Leaders Inspire Unpredictable Brilliance. London: Portfolio Penguin.

Wright, Michelle. 2022. Fundraising in the Creative and Cultural Industries: Leading Effective Fundraising Strategies. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.