Here at ICMP, we’re hugely proud to announce that three of our graduating BA (Hons) Creative Musicianship students – Isabelle Luca Borg, Violaine Vandenbrouchke and Taehee Kwon – had their paper accepted at the prestigious Association for Popular Music Education (APME) international conference in New York and presented it to a packed room on Thursday 13th June. It’s always a huge honour for undergraduate students or new graduates to have their work recognised at a conference of such a high global standard and is an enormous achievement.

The trio flew to New York to present their academic paper on ‘genre fluidity’ at the annual APME Conference, which was held this year at New York University’s Steinhardt Building from 12th–15th June. Their paper was an amalgamation of the three dissertations the students submitted for their final year studies at ICMP.

The APME event celebrates, critiques and explores popular music teaching, learning, researching, creating and performing and, while it’s based in the US, it has an impact right across the globe. At this year’s conference, Isabelle, Violaine and Taehee rubbed shoulders with around 200 professional musicians, artists, educators, academics and music representatives from all across the world – with some travelling from Australia, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Canada and France. Attendees explored best practices, performed, networked and heard keynote speeches from major figures in music, industry and education. It was a uniquely valuable opportunity for our three final year students to kick-start their careers as they prepare to establish themselves in their field and launch themselves on the music industry.

The three students also performed live during their visit to New York, with a gig in front of an appreciative audience keen to discover the ‘next big thing’ at New York University on Friday 14th June.

ICMP’s Director and Dean, Dr Tony Harris, congratulated Isabelle, Violaine and Taehee on behalf of the college:

This is the culmination of three years of hard work and determination by these students. It’s an exceptional achievement for fresh graduates to have had their paper accepted. They were part of an international delegation of esteemed academics, musicians and experts in their field, with all the networking opportunities this brings.”

ICMP graduating Vocals student, singer-songwriter Isabelle Luca Borg, said networking at the 2019 conference has helped to raise her public profile and will hopefully lead to international creative collaborations:

The opportunity to go to this conference in New York was absolutely massive. We came home with so many concrete international leads to pursue for management, songwriting, performance, recording, co-writing and other professional musical opportunities. I feel like we capitalised on this peak moment in our careers between leaving university and taking the leap into full-time professional artistry.”

Here at ICMP, we’d like to congratulate Isabelle, Violaine and Taehee on their global success as they embark on the next stage of their careers on a truly international stage. We can’t wait to see first-hand the many ways the renowned conference helps them to launch their brand and music to the world.