THOUGHTS + RESEARCH

Thoughts, ideas, case studies, and previous activities

Research - Different Student Profiles and Attitudes to Digitisation in Higher Music Education 2025

For the last three years, I have been part of the Digitisation Working Group with the AEC - European Association of Conservatoires as part of their project ARTEMIS: Empowering Artists as Makers in Society. Our focus has been to assess how digitalisation is used artistically, pedagogically, and how current audiences are identifying with it to engage with creative and cultural content.

Thinking about our primary audience - staff and students at higher education institutions - we wanted to understand where students currently sit in their journeys and relationships with technology. To understand how to support those who need to engage with technology more, and also to provide space for creative exploration, we partnered with EPASA - European Performing Arts Students' Association to run a European-wide survey. This led to some really insightful interviews to further understand their confidence levels, interactions with tech, and how institutional and external factors shape their experiences.

All of this analysis led to the development of 3 distinct types of students currently studying music at higher education:

🔵 Digital Administrators

🔵 Tech Enthusiasts

🔵 Hybrid Artists

How to use the Student Profiles

Inspired by marketing segmentation, we hope that staff and institutions will be able to identify which profiles their students are in - to understand how institutions and individual teachers play a crucial role in students’ development with technology. Within the main report we have provided some ideas, inspiration, and food for thought for how institutions can support all different types of students to navigate artistically enriching and successful careers in the creative and cultural sectors.

You can read the full report here.

Thanks so much of course to the entire AEC Digitisation Working Group for an incredible three years: Sandrine Desmurs, Enric Guaus, Thom Gilbert, Håkon Kvidal, Prof. Dr. Philipp Ahner, and Alessandra Callegari

Research - Navigating Digitisation: A Roadmap for Higher Music Education Institutions 2025

From 2022-2025, I was part of the Digitisation Working Group with the AEC - European Association of Conservatoires as part of their project ARTEMIS: Empowering Artists as Makers in Society. Our focus was to review and assess four pillars:

Digital pedagogy (digitalisation used in learning and teaching)
Digital skills for musicians
Digital as a creative medium
Digital audiences

With the frame of these four pillars, we wrote and published "Navigating Digitisation: A Roadmap for Higher Music Education Institutions": a strategic guide designed to help conservatoires and music academies embrace digital transformation. It is aimed at institutional leaders, staff, and students.

How to use the Digitisation Roadmap

Aimed at institutions of all shapes and sizes, the Roadmap has been designed to introduce the benefits, challenges and considerations of deploying technology within a conservatoire. This includes:

💿 Understanding the different stakeholders within HEIs

💿 Resource and infrastructure investments

💿 Curriculum development

💿 Incorporating digitisation within artistic processes

💿 Understanding and changing institutional culture and mindset

You can read the full Roadmap here.

Thanks so much of course to the entire AEC Digitisation Working Group for an incredible three years: Sandrine Desmurs, Enric Guaus, Thom Gilbert, Håkon Kvidal, Prof. Dr. Philipp Ahner, and Alessandra Callegari.

Research - QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Music 2025

From 2024-2025, I had the pleasure of being part of the Advisory Group for the new The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education Subject Benchmark Statement (SBS) for Music, which was published in April 2025.

It was a thoughtful and collaborative process, working with colleagues from across the sector to help shape the future of music in higher education and beyond. The revised SBS reflects the breadth, depth, and evolving nature of music as a discipline and vocation in an ever-changing society.

I am grateful to have contributed to this and excited to see how it supports students, practitioners, institutions, and the creative and cultural sector in the years ahead.

Read the updated statement here.

Project - Winning the UK XR Hackathon! 2024

We won first prize in the Social / Gaming category at London's XR Hackathon!

What is a Hackathon?

A hackathon is where a group of people come together for a few days and create something. As this was an XR Hack, everyone was focussed on developing experiences in mixed reality (combining physical and digital elements). This Hackathon was organised, facilitated, and sponsored by Meta, XR Bootcamp, Innovate UK, and PwC.

At PwC's headquarters in London, over 160 XR developers came together, created teams, and made some incredible prototypes, including an AI-driven British Sign Language app and a calligraphy app.

What we made

In under 3 days we created Chaos: a social co-located mixed reality game where you act as Agents of the Gods participating in an eternal vertical tug of war between Mount Olympus and the Underworld.

We wanted to explore physicality and presence in service of enhanced social activity - in a way that is only possible through mixed reality. We set out to create an active and chaotic game for 4 players, in which your physical space turns into a mythological battleground.

What makes it XR?

Constantly asking ourselves the question of "Why XR?" was fundamental. We combined the physicality of social interaction with collaborative problem solving and fun storytelling mechanisms, which can only really be done in XR.

We utilised Meta's Presence Platform, particularly the Scene API, as well as the standard Interaction and Audio SDKs, as well as passthrough. We also used spatial anchors.

Who made it?

I was very fortunate to be on a team with some incredible people that I have worked with for the past few years:

Katie Eggleston - UX / UI Designer

Lauren Fitzpatrick - Game Designer

James Hosken - Creative Technologist and Developer

As for my contributiuon, I produced the project and did the sound design.

Reflections on my first Hackathon...

I had so much fun at my first Hackathon: the organisers fostered a lovely, community-orientated energy, the Hackers were very friendly and collaborative, and the Mentors and Judges were so helpful and encouraging. With all the redundancies impacting developers and studios at the moment, I came away feeling optimistic about the future of the XR sector. There is a huge amount of talent, understanding, curiosity, empathy, and creativity out there - the things that people were able to conceptualise and prototype could really revolutionise the way we use mixed reality for entertainment and skills-building.

Some lessons and rules we collectively applied for the Hackathon:

Be flexible

Ideally you want to create something that impresses the judges, which can force teams into a corner: you want to create something that is really ambitious and pushes the boundaries, but you only have a finite amount of time. Keep the scope under control and be frequently reviewing it so that you have an end product/prototype you can demonstrate. While it’s important that the creative/technical vision is the true north, you need to be agile and flexible in how you reach this.

Have a strong timeline

Set milestones per day, and stick to them!

Assign (and stick to) roles

Assigning roles within the team is very important - it means the work is divided evenly between you all. For example I finished all the sound design about halfway through the Hack, and then focussed all of my attention on the presentation and monitoring the progress of the others.

Communication and time management

Maintaining frequent communication within the whole team is crucial - we had check-ins every few hours to monitor progress against the scope, live unblock each other, and keep each other sane!

Access requirements

These are long days in the same space (often without natural light) which can get very intense and overwhelming - checking in with each other isn’t just about the timeline, it’s about making sure everyone is ok, not too stressed, staying hydrated, and taking access breaks if necessary. Don’t be afraid to reach out to the organisers for additional support as well.

Don’t forget the other submission requirements

We had to submit an APK, provide a walkthrough or live demo, present a pitch deck, present a 60 second trailer video, and fill out a fair amount of information on DevPost. Don’t leave this to the last minute! We dedicated the final day to the video, finalising and rehearsing the pitch deck, preparing all the DevPost requirements.

Quiz the Mentors

The Mentors are there for a reason - don’t be afraid to ask them as many questions as possible. Obviously they have to remain impartial, but you can ask them to look at work in progress, discuss the submission and judging process, talk through your pitch deck with them, and ask them to act as a critical friend and ask the uncomfortable questions so you can prepare for all eventualities. We had some amazing Mentors with a diverse range of backgrounds which really helped.

Presenting to the Judges - have a back up plan!

I would highly recommend a back up plan if you can’t get the prototype to work live with the judges - went spent a little bit of extra time and effort filming and cutting a walkthrough video just in case we couldn’t get it to work in the moment. Thankfully we didn’t need to use it, but I felt more comfortable having it there.

Understandably, a Hackathon is very demanding on the venue’s WiFi network. Make sure you have everything saved locally on at least 1 or 2 devices just in case the internet fails you at the last minute.

Final Words

It takes a village to organise these sorts of events - logistics, catering, people management, securing sponsors, judges, and mentors etc. Huge thanks goes out to:

- XR Bootcamp, Ferhan Özkan and Rahel Demant for organising the first ever Global XR Hack.

- Meta, Innovate UK, and PWC for sponsoring and supporting the London Hack, particularly Asha Easton, Amy Chao, Jeremy Dalton, and Roberto Coviello.

- Sean Rodrigo for bringing the XR community together with his infectious personality!

- Our mentors for their provocations and guidance over the last few days: Zack Brisson, Mo Sayyar, Nigel McAlpine, Maruša Levstek, Ju Zhang, and Gregor Finger.

- The judges, for giving up their time, especially Zac Drake, Alex Rühl, and Sam Watts from the Social Gaming category.

Finally, a huge thanks to Lauren, Katie, and James for an amazing collaboration - we went into the Hackathon wanting to make something together, and I am so proud of us for making Chaos! Thanks also for putting up with my constant questions, requests, and for giving you an ear worm!

What next?

Watch this space! I’m really curious to try out some of the other creations from the London XR Hack - get in touch if you have something you want to share.

I’m also looking forward to seeing projects from the other XR Hackathons!

Want to talk some more? Get in touch.

Interview - Developing a VR experience and immersive learning - interview with Meta 2024

An interview I did with the team at Meta to discuss VR development, immersive learning, and how we made an experience with audience front and centre of the unique narratives in the ecosystem.

Unearthed was developed at Factory 42 and released in March 2024.

Read the interview.

Thoughts - Artificial Intelligence and the role it can play in Music + Music Education 2023

Excerpt taken from the plenary session on A.I. at the AEC Congress 2023

My position statement:

"As a multimedia artist, I have used AI as a tool to facilitate an aspect of my creativity. I cannot give a binary answer to “how I relate to AI”. I understand the concerns relating to artistic integrity: copyright ownership, discoverability issues, evolution of employability, the changing artistic field, the changing business model of the music sector. The future will look different for me and my peers.

In a survey EPASA and the AEC produced earlier this year, we asked the question: “Which technologies do you think are disrupting the artistic field?” Unsurprisingly, the number one was AI. Anecdotally, I know of so many people using AI to do some, if not all of, of their academic work. So this poses the question - what will happen to academic integrity, if students aren’t using their critical, analytical, or research skills in this way?

It requires a mindset shift. I am generalising, but I know there are concerns from the community about how to approach AI in artistic education. The sector has been here before, facing different challenges, such as digital streaming - we just need to adapt our mindset and look for the opportunities. One way to address this is to look at how you curate learning and assessment in response to the use of AI - it's crucial.

How are you preparing emerging professionals for the future? The World Economic Forum produced their Future of Jobs report earlier this year, and found that the top 10 core skills for workers include: analytical thinking, creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, motivation, self awareness, curiosity, empathy, active listening, leadership. These are transferable, cognitive skills which I know we can attain from studying artistic courses. So, as artists, we already have the advantage!

Collectively, if we approach it right, I truly believe we have an opportunity to pivot into the imagination age: where creativity and imagination become the primary creators of value in society on many levels."

With thanks to the AEC, Ine Vanoeveren, Luc Döbereiner, Orla McDonagh, and Paul Craenen.

Thoughts for Adobe - How digital literacy empowers students as they take their first career steps 2022

Excerpt taken from a webinar with Adobe in 2022

Recent graduates, Mimi Harmer and Jean Sarunporn, use digital tools in their workplaces. Having had a foundational structure of digital tools throughout their education, they are well-placed to tell us how this is benefitting them in their careers.

Jean says: “I’ve used Adobe products from a very young age, and I’ve learnt a lot of skills. Not just video editing and animation, but in my current job as a marketing specialist, I can use softer skills I’ve learned; things like creative thinking, presenting my work in a way that stands out and using visualisation because I work with a lot of data that’s complicated to understand. I also get to use my storytelling skills when I’m pitching for new client projects."

Mimi is a composer, digital producer and music teacher. She says: “I have three main pillars: music, education and digital. I'm very interested in how we can use digital tools to widen access and participation, to create new subgenres of art and to utilise both within education. I acquired my digital literacy from the opportunities I had within the curriculum, where I was allowed to explore and to take creative risks. I learned by doing, and from having collaboration opportunities - it was about having access to software and the facilities to experiment and learn from others.”

Both Jean and Mimi demonstrate the importance of role modelling in their education. They have both been given the opportunity and encouragement to experiment, collaborate and learn from others (and their own mistakes) - and ultimately, their digital literacy is empowering them to make great strides in their budding careers.

Click here to watch the webinar this article is based on.

Thoughts - AEC 70th Anniversary - Student Voice 2023

Invitation to reflect on the role students and alumni have played in the AEC as part of the 70th Anniversary in 2023.

Dear AEC,

I wish you a very happy birthday. If I can be bold to say, you have some excellent gifts: a vibrant and diverse membership, exceptional projects, impactful outcomes, a dedicated Council, and truly wonderful staff.

Last weekend EPASA held its inaugural Conference and General Assembly – performing arts students gathered from across Europe to discuss and debate the future on many topics that matter to us all. As we celebrate this momentous milestone, I wish to reflect with you on the evolution of the student voice in HME; none of which would have been possible of course without you, the AEC.

It is my understanding that the student’s voice was formally invited to participate in AEC activities in 2014 with the beginning of the FULL SCORE project. The idea was to draw upon the fresh perspectives of emerging artistic professionals to “enrich the debate about the professional career field of music”. Six students were selected and formed the AEC Student Working Group: Ankna Arockiam, Sylvain Devaux, Ruth Fraser, Isabel Gonzalez Delgado, Angelina Konstantinou, and Saara Lindahl.

The first Student Working Group (SWG) spent these formative years doing three major things: learning about common issues affecting students, scoping the differing situations of student representation systems, and integrating themselves within the AEC’s various events and networks. The SWG did this with great success: they launched a handbook (“Increasing student voice in Higher Music Education institutions”) and a Manifesto. They were also given the opportunity at AEC events to provide the student with perspective on topics and propose subjects.

I asked Isabel Gondel to reflect on their impact: “I think that the main relevant thing was to make them all understand that students’ voices are valuable and that they can contribute equally from a different perspective for the enhancement of higher music education. AEC started to listen to students and that was the first great step done.” In three years this SWG laid excellent foundations for the next generation.

In 2017 the Strengthening Music in Society project launched and with it a new group of students: Roberto Boschelli, Isabel Gondel, Baptiste Grandgirard, Camilla Overgaard, and Siri Storheim, with Eline Accoe and I joining a year later. The second generation of the SWG was responsible for further integrating the student voice through their other working group, by supporting other students to mobilise locally and to explore the possible creation of an independent organisation.

What impact did we have? Concretely we tried to be agents of change by approaching social topics head-on through workshops, seminars, and panel discussions. We celebrated other students who had the courage to speak up, and we began to foster an international community of emerging artistic professionals – but the other impact we had was a cultural one.

I also wish to briefly reflect on what impact the AEC has had on students in HME. For me, the biggest thing has been to give students the opportunity and space to connect, to inspire and be inspired, to mobilize, and to take ownership of their educational experiences. Without the AEC, EPASA would never have been created, and students wouldn’t have a space to protect and improve the arts and artistic education.

Happy birthday, AEC. You have our deepest gratitude for your support in championing and platforming active student participation.

Here’s to the next 70 years with student partnership at the heart of everything.

Read the full article here.

Thoughts for MusiQuE - Involving Students in Quality Assurance Practices 2022

Invitation by MusiQuE to present ideas on student engagement in QA in 2022.

In 2022, I was invited by MusiQuE to present my ideas on how students can be at the heart of quality assurance practices across higher music education.

View presentation here.

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