UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 01 OCTOBER 2020
Dr Shirley Thompson has been appointed as Interim Principal for Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. This interim role will run for a period of four months, to provide continuity for RBC and to ensure that there is experienced leadership in place while an executive search for a permanent Principal.
Shirley has worked at RBC since 2001, occupying a series of different roles, including Director of Postgraduate Studies in Music from July 2009 and Vice Principal for Music since October 2018.
She has an international reputation as a musicologist, focusing on French Baroque music, and on the composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier in particular. Her publications include an edited book on Charpentier (Ashgate, 2010) and a 700-page two-volume critical edition of his motets (Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 2018), along with numerous articles and book chapters.
Shirley says: “I am delighted to be stepping into the Interim Principal role at the Conservatoire, with which I have such a long and happy association. I am looking forward to working with colleagues in RBC, the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media, and the wider University in this new capacity over the coming months.”