Music Business and Entrepreneurship

The practical BA (Hons) Music Business and Entrepreneurship is the first music business degree in the UK to give equal weighting to the concept of ‘entrepreneurship’. This groundbreaking programme promotes enterprise and innovation across all three years, and will see you tackle real-world industry projects, all with the aim of encouraging your natural creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.

This music business course is perfect for those wanting to establish a multi-skilled, entrepreneurial career within the music and wider creative industries, and will provide you with the tools, opportunities and experience to develop your music business career. The emphasis on entrepreneurship means you’ll be encouraged and supported to launch and run your own business, with the ability to pitch your ideas as part of NatWest’s Entrepreneur Accelerator programme.

You’ll learn a wide range of management, business and creative skills in small, personalised learning groups, and will be taught by established music industry executives whose aim is to help you maximise the creative and commercial potential of the artist–business relationship. The encouragement of collaboration at ICMP will see you work in partnership with fellow student musicians from the college’s talent pool, promoting and managing them as creative artists as part of your course content.

You’ll discover every aspect of the music business first-hand through sessions with special music industry guest visitors, and attendance at music conferences as delegates, as well as other industry networking events.

ICMP’s unique and innovative programme has been developed and designed courtesy of a high level of consultation from the music business, with ongoing external feedback provided by global music organisations such as Island Records, Warner/Chappell Music, Live Nation, PRS for Music, Music Week, BMG Rights, Music Managers Forum, Spotify, Brace Yourself PR and many more.

Our core aim for this degree is to help you break into the music industry while you’re still an ICMP student. That means that, upon graduation, you’ll be well versed in critically assessing new business opportunities and practices, and you’ll already have managed a variety of different music projects. You’ll be confident at communicating both orally and in writing, and will have developed a toolkit of ICT skills for application in the wider business environment.

You’ll be experienced at working both independently and as part of a team, and will possess the ability to organise, identify problems, exercise initiative, select and implement effective solutions, and meet strict deadlines and targets. In fact, if you’re not already operating a portfolio career in the music industry well before you graduate, we’d be very surprised.