Lara Brown 25103977

Introduction

This journal is a self-reflection on the placements that I have done throughout the past 6 months at Leeds Conservatoire. I will document the placements and my role(s) within them, I will look at how these placement experiences have impacted my progression as an MD and I will also research the wider industry to gain knowledge of different avenues that may be open for me.

My Placements

I took on a variety of placements over the course of my MA, each providing me with different perspectives on the role of a Musical Director. Within each of these projects I took on differing roles. Below I will briefly introduce you to some of the most impactful experiences that I had in this module, explaining the context of the project and the ways in which I contributed to it.

JANE EYRE (18hrs)

• Show type: Actor-Muso
• My role: AMD / Observing
• Creative team: Simon Slater, Laura Baxter, Sarah Frankcom

YOU, ME AND THE REST OF THE WORLD (20hrs)

• Show type: R&D week
• My role: Observing
• Creative team: Hollie Cassar, Laura Meaton

RECORDING NEW MUSICAL (8hrs)

• Show type: Recording session (with rehearsals)
• My role: Co-MD
• Creative team: Aaron Newland-Bentley, Gus Gowland

FINAL ACT – FUN HOME (30hrs)

• Show type: Rearranged musical
• My role: MD / Band Member (keys)
• Creative team: Licie Wood

A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (170hrs)

• Show type: Full musical
• My role: AMD / Band Member (keys 2)
• Creative team: Aaron Newland-Bentley, John Young, Hayley Del Harrison, Tom Maxwell

FROM LONDON TO BROADWAY (25hrs)

• Show type: MT concert
• My role: Co-MD / Orchestrator / Band Member (flute/keys 2)
• Creative team: Aaron Newland-Bentley, MA-MDs

WONDERFUL TOWN (18hrs)

• Show type: Rearranged musical
• My role: Co-MD / Co-accompanist (piano duet)
• Creative team: Scott Harrison, Gus Gowland, MA-MDs

What I did in my placements:

Recording a new musical:

I was asked by Aaron to help him teach two songs composed by Gus Gowland to the 2nd year musical theatre students. These songs would eventually be professionally recorded at the conservatoire. This was my first experience recording music in a recording booth, and additionally, it was my first time taking on a musical director role in the conservatoire. My involvement with this project required me to teach the music to the group, including multiple vocal harmonies and then eventually facilitate the recording process. I also played the accompaniment in the room as I taught it. These were not easy songs and I was very worried prior to the first rehearsal, especially as I had no audio of the music to listen to beforehand. I will touch on how I worked on this later in this portfolio, when I discuss the collaboration between myself and the other musical directors.

My teaching of the songs was very successful and thankfully, we were ready to record. Prior to the recording day, I was required to create piano audio tracks for the cast to use and sing along to during the recordings. This was my first time doing this as well, so I learnt how to effectively keep in time – especially with tempo changes in the music – and make a clear recording with the technology.

Final Act – Fun Home:

I took the role of Musical Director of Fun Home for the Final Act performance. My requirements were to teach the music to the three cast members and work alongside Licie, the director. As a creative team, we made a lot of decisions about how to adapt the three songs that we were performing to make sense contextually, since we were missing some pivotal plot points from the storyline. In order to do this, we allocated the role of Alison (the protagonist) to all three performers, each of them acting a different age (child, teen and adult). Although this idea is also used in the original production, we kept this concept all the way through, including in songs such as Come to the Fun Home where we adapted the three separate siblings to be the three stages of Alison, and also Maps/Telephone Wire where we spilt the solo song up between the three actors. It was important to work closely with Licie on this, as I wanted to make sure that the vocal lines I allocated made sense in the context of that specific version of Alison’s character. Because we turned a solo song into a trio, this also required me to create some harmony lines in the music. Below is an example of my notes, however most of the harmonies I created were recorded audio tracks.

A Man of No Importance (AMONI):

As assistant musical director in AMONI my job was to work closely with Aaron (the MD) and do tasks such as making notes to give to the cast, working in separate rooms on vocals and occasionally playing accompaniment in the main rehearsal room. Additionally, as I was playing keyboard 2 in the band, this meant that I was also able to help out with the band rehearsals and set-up. This was the first large-scale professional production process that I have had experience on and it gave me a lot of insight into the role of the MD and how it is included within the creative team on a project. I spoke a lot about my experience on this placement in my presentation, so I won’t go into too much detail here, however this production gave me a very good insight into the requirements of an AMD which is very valuable knowledge for me as I begin the same role in My Fair Lady at the conservatoire this spring.

From London to Broadway (L2B):

From London to Broadway was another placement where all the MDs split our roles evenly from beginning to end. This meant we all had an equal amount to do, and the preparation process could be completed five times faster. My first task was to arrange band parts for four of the songs (Colours of the Wind, Burn, On My Own and Wait A Bit). My next task was to book equipment for all the band rehearsals, the dress rehearsal and the show. Additionally, I led the songs that I had arranged during our band rehearsal, working through the music with the players and conducting pauses and tempo changes from my position on the flute.

Wonderful Town:

In Wonderful Town, my role was a co-MD alongside the rest of my coursemates. At the beginning of the project, I ended up taking more of a directorial role due to certain factors of the process not being prepared. I will discuss this later in the portfolio, however, as a bit of context I ended up cutting the script and organising the songs that would be used with the guidance and support of the other MDs. This included things such as adding in songs, changing characters and removing lines if they no longer made sense contextually. As this was something I had never had to do before as it is not a requirement of the MD role, I hope that I managed to cut the script in a suitable way.

Aside from this, I led some rehearsals that were split evenly between the MDs and I also performed as one of the piano duets in the showcase, rehearsing this separately to the cast rehearsals. I found that due to organisational issues, it was difficult for us as MDs to fulfil our roles.

Reflections: my work and the work of others

Importance of creative team support:

“The combination of skills offered by the multidisciplinary creative team should prove a productive and complementary model for creative endeavour” Mallett, A. (2018)

I have had a lot of creative team experience during my MA placements. I have learnt the importance of a group that supports each other and communicates efficiently and respectfully. When this is not the case, it can cause group tension or issues with the project’s progression.

During Wonderful Town, I noticed how difficult it is to fulfil the MD role when there is little support from the director(s). There were multiple issues with this, for example, as I mentioned earlier we required a cut script from the directors so we would be able to work out the music that required teaching. This was communicated to the directors multiple times however it did not get completed. Therefore, to avoid stunting the progression of the project, I offered to cut the script and work with the MDs to cast each scene. This began a chain of communication errors between MDs and directors, often causing wider issues. Schedules became lacklustre and we were often not informed of rehearsal times or locations until we would come forward and ask about them. There was also an issue of respect amongst the creative team, with directors notifying us of planned rehearsal cancellations only an hour before the scheduled time. Additionally, information such as the available equipment in the rehearsal rooms would be given to us incredibly last-minute – problems that we would have to quickly solve. If communication hadn’t been disregarded then I believe we could have had a flawless performance. Although the concept of teamwork seems like a non-negotiable in these environments, it is possible for this to be lost in translation with some creative team members, which can be detrimental to the product’s quality. I have discovered that every minute in the rehearsal room matters, and absences, unpunctuality and rehearsal cancellations all contribute to this issue – resulting in our time spent preparing and attending rehearsals to essentially be a waste.

Another thing that was possibly affected by the lack of communication was the dedication of the cast’s work outside of the rehearsal room. I believe that if there had been clear rehearsal schedules made for everyone with expectations of what the cast should know, it would have been much clearer for them. One of the biggest issues was the cast being unprepared with the material, for example, while two of us were running Swing! with the full ensemble, they told us that the reason they weren’t singing loudly is because they didn’t know the words. As Swing! had already been taught previously by another MD and additionally had been in the finalised song list for over a month, it was disappointing to know that there hadn’t been much attention given to learning it properly. I also noticed a similar thing happen with Ohio, which I had spent over an hour teaching and recorded two separate vocal tracks in the room for them to rehearse in their spare time. However, in the performance I did not hear the harmony being sung. I think in the future, I would have a discussion with the cast at the beginning of a project to chat a bit about time management, respect and also the importance of dedicating extra time outside of the rehearsal room to practice the things that were taught. Regardless of whether there is a cohesive creative team or not, when the material is available then the cast must have a level of proactiveness to at least learn their lyrics and lines.

Contrary to this, in Fun Home Licie and I developed a strong working relationship together as the creative team. We communicated when we would be available for rehearsals and as this was a non-assessed module for the both of us, we worked around each other’s commitments outside of the project to ensure that one of us was in the room for each planned rehearsal. We also balanced our tasks and planned rehearsals according to which of us was available. This felt like a supportive creative team as we respected time constraints and did not let these factors negatively impact our project outcome or the atmosphere of the room.

Another creative team dynamic that I experienced was during AMONI. There was a creative team of four (Aaron as MD, myself as AMD, John as director and Hayley as choreographer) however this team would also be able to be subdivided in half. This meant that Aaron and I would work closely together while at the same time, Hayley and John made up the other half. The reason why this worked well was all down to delegation of tasks. For example, rather than using a whole creative team meeting to sort out onstage percussion, Aaron and I stepped aside to organise this together. Having two separate teams for movement direction and music allowed us to work on two things at once, ensuring productive progression. This taught me that although the creative team is extremely collaborative, it is common for members to mainly just focus on the principal of their role rather than concerning themselves with the production as a whole. This is similar to Laura, the company manager, organising the schedules. Although we were all involved with deciding what we might look at the following day, it is something that could then be passed to Laura for her to sort out. If everyone concerned themselves with every aspect of the show then it would become overwhelming. Again, it is all about balance and essentially learning how to maintain a team dynamic while working in our respective areas. This links back to my issue with Wonderful Town, as the lines between roles were so blurred that people ended up having to take on tasks that weren’t a part of their original role. There was no real creative team dynamic to accumulate our individual roles.

‘The Hivemind’ – how we supported each other as Musical Directors:

Something we experienced as a course that isn’t necessarily reflective of the industry was having four to five MDs working on the same project. Because of this, we had to figure out how to work alongside each other, occasionally having to divide the role of one MD between all five of us. This happened during a few of my placements, including Wonderful Town as previously mentioned, and it taught me the values of teamwork and also how to delegate tasks.

Before I discuss our joint placements, I must mention my first experience having the support of the MD cohort on a project. The first rehearsal with the 2nd years for the recording session was moved forward to much sooner than I had expected, so instead of having the weekend to go over the score, I only had a day. I told everyone that I was really struggling with the rhythms of the music and Yezi, Dan and Julian instantly offered to help me figure it out. I could not have had such a successful first rehearsal without their aid, and it really made me understand that regardless of whether a piece of work has incentive for the whole group or not, we will still support and help each other where we can. What was a very stressful situation for me, ended up being three hours of fun as we took turns to sing different parts, allowing me to get a grip on all the harmonies. This short experience showed me true collaboration and reassured me that it is okay to ask for help.

The first placement where we officially worked together as a group was Final Act where we were all MDing the entire project, however, we split into four separate groups to work on one musical each. Additionally, Dan acted as a Music Supervisor by overseeing the project and organising the music and orchestrations. I took on Fun Home and I found that working on my own with a small cast was enjoyable. It was also really helpful having a Musical Supervisor as Dan would organise all of our music so the only thing we had to focus on was teaching in the room. The first time that the MDs joined forces was for our band rehearsals in which we were all playing. To maximise time and ensure that the accompaniment was exactly as rehearsed with the cast, we each conducted our own songs either from the instruments we were on, or alternatively, by swapping over to keys. I feel that this process worked very well. We all had the ability to work in our own time and use our own unique methods. There was never a situation where we would clash due to no one knowing who was in charge. On the final performance day, I was unwell and unable to come to university. The other MDs instantly helped me by working out a solution, deciding that Dan would step in to play the keys for my songs. This proactive problem-solving mentality is extremely important within the creative team, as in situations like this, the issue must be solved quickly and professionally.

The second experience was From London to Broadway which, in a similar sense, required us to create band arrangements in our own time and eventually come together for the rehearsals. Again, in the rehearsals we led the songs that we had arranged, eventually passing the conducting baton over to Julian for the shows as he was playing first keys. This was a great way of working as we had the opportunity to explain what we had written, allowing Julian to make notes for the dress rehearsal. Alongside this, we were required to play for some of the cast rehearsals, including one of the tap classes which I offered to do. This was an interesting experience for me as I had never worked with a choreographer in that context. I had to use my musical skills to help her figure out the time signature that a certain part of the dance was in and then work out the best way to notate that. I then relayed this information to Tom, who created a written arrangement, and Julian, who then was able to explain this to the band. I think that this perfectly sums up the cohesiveness of this project, and how although we are all capable MDs with similar skillsets, we are also able to delegate tasks effectively and apply our unique qualities to different things.

As an MD cohort, I believe that these joint placement experiences have made us very close, both personally and professionally. This means that we have had to learn how to separate these two relationships to avoid conflict. There were definitely issues with these processes regardless of all the positive outcomes – I believe that these issues mainly lie with the contrasting methods that we like to use, something that is usually so important for an MD who is working solo. A example of this would be rehearsal etiquette, some of us preferring to work in a very professional room and others favouring a bit of humour or leniency. Both very different but both can be just as effective. There were definitely some other slight clashes. I noticed that in the rehearsal room it could sometimes be difficult to remember who is leading the band in that moment as we are all capable of making musical decisions. Also, there were occasions where deadlines weren’t met which can cause frustration for the people who had completed the tasks. I found that this is all solved with good communication. You must be fully open about how you like work and also be reasonably honest with people when something is affecting you or the project. Then the issues are much more likely to be solved. I don’t know whether this opinion would be typical for all MDs in the industry and maybe because we are such good friends outside of work then this made it manageable, however, none of these were bad experiences and I believe that each of these performance contexts actually benefitted from having multiple MDs involved.

Wider Industry/Personal Plan…

I spoke to Hollie Cassar, a west end musical director, performer and singer-songwriter, to gain some advice as to what my next steps towards the industry should be. In terms of skills, she said that it is very important to continue to improve myself. This means that I will continue to work on my piano playing and sight-reading, as well as my confidence as an MD which is something I spoke about a lot in my placement presentation. However, in terms of next career steps, she mentioned working in the entertainment sector on cruise ships which is something that I had already been really interested in pursuing.

My next step would be to start applying for cruise ship companies and giving them my CV and information so that they are aware of my interest in a position. I’d love to be involved with the shows as either MD or band member and additionally, I would apply for the piano-voice roles that they are offering as well. An example of this is the Royal Caribbean, who have a website where you can create a profile on their system. I have already created an account and plan to set up my full profile soon, however, this image shows the kind of roles that I might apply for.

If cruise ships aren’t something that I end up working on, an alternative option that Hollie mentioned in our conversation was that I must get involved with as much as I possibly can, to not only gain experience but to make contacts in the industry as well. She told me to message theatres or theatre companies to see if they need anyone in either pit bands or as MD or AMD. Additionally, asking to sit in the pit is another great way to get your name out there amongst the musicians. I should also keep an eye out for any paid internship roles. This is something I have already started doing, although I have been unsuccessful so far, it is great experience to understand the application process for these opportunities.

Something that was highlighted a lot in my undergraduate degree was the concept of a ‘portfolio career’. This ultimately means having a few jobs on-the-go to create a sustainable income. Therefore, the idea of doing one-on-one piano teaching is something that massively appeals to me. My piano teacher was one of the most influential people in my life in terms of my musical journey into a career. I would love the chance to do the same for my own students. It would hopefully be a successful job for me to have alongside a theatre job in the UK, allowing me to be self-employed and work on my own time. The Musician’s Union supports the idea of instrumental music teaching, and if you join as a member you are able to get advice and help with insurance for teaching lessons.

To Conclude…

Throughout my placements I have learnt and observed many different things. Most importantly, I believe that I have finally got a grasp on how – as an MD or AMD – I should situate myself within a rehearsal process or creative team. It is evident from my reflections that communication is a vital attribute to a successful, rehearsed end product. However, I have also noticed that an equal delegation of tasks is very important to ensure quick progression in a process. This becomes easier when you have developed a healthy group dynamic (for example, as an MD cohort or alternatively the creative team of Fun Home), whereas a disjunct team (such as the team in Wonderful Town) can negatively impact it. Now I have researched some avenues for my next step after graduation, I can utilise experiences from placements to improve my own practice and also the way in which I work alongside practitioners in the industry, hopefully allowing me to develop successful leadership skills whilst maintaining professional working relationships amongst the creative team.

References:

All you Need to Know When Working as a Music Teacher (2020). All you Need to Know When Working as a Music Teacher. [online] Musiciansunion.org.uk. Available at: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/music-teaching. [Accessed 14 April 2026]

Cassar, H. (2026) ‘Experience as a Musical Director’ [Recorded conversation]. 9 April 2026, 13:30.

Fields, J. Chodorov, J. (1953). Wonderful Town [Libretto]. Edited by Lara Brown. Chappell & Co., Inc. and G. Schirmer., Inc.

Gowland, G. (n.d). Don’t Talk, Just Dance – Candidates [Musical Score].

Gowland, G. (n.d). V.O.T.E – Candidates [Musical Score].

Live Music. (2019). Royal Caribbean Is Hiring Musicians, Singers and Performers. [online] Available at: https://royalcaribbeanentertainment.com/livemusic/careers/. [Accessed 14 April 2026]

Mallett, A. (2018) Composing for musical theatre: approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration. Bath Spa University. Available at: https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/11591/1/11591.pdf [Accessed 10 April 2026]

Strayhorn, B. (n.d). Take the A Train [Musical Score]. Arrangement by Guerretti, G.

Strayhorn, B. (n.d). Take the A Train [Musical Score]. Arrangement by Maxwell, T.

Tesori, J. (2014). Telephone Wire [Musical Score]. Samuel French.