World-famous cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, who took over as principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire on 1 July, has ambitions to make the institution ¡°the go-to place in this country¡­right across the instrumental range¡±.

He has arrived, he told Times Higher Education, at a time when ¡°standards are at an all-time high¡±. Work is about to start on a new ?46 million building, due for completion in 2017, which will significantly enhance practice and performance facilities. And that would provide a launch pad for their continuing search for ¡°excellence¡±.

¡°We have just appointed Catrin Finch as visiting chair in harp. She¡¯s going to be pretty hands on, come several times a term, and I can¡¯t think of a better or better-known harpist in the world. That will attract a lot of harp students and I can see that happening right across the instrumental range,¡± he said.

Professor Lloyd Webber wants to develop existing links with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which regularly brings in ¡°a great roster of conductors and soloists¡±. Students could learn a great deal by attending rehearsals and ¡°it makes a huge amount of sense for a musician, after an concert, to come into the conservatoire ¨C I always enjoyed doing that and it¡¯s great for the students to be taught by the same person on the same day.¡±?

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There was also scope for recording such classes and broadcasting them across the world through the conservatoire¡¯s ¡°embryonic YouTube channel¡±, he added.

The Birmingham Conservatoire forms part of Birmingham City University and Professor Lloyd Webber stressed the many advantages which flow from this. There were, for example, first-rate recording facilities and budding website designers in the School of Media and Design, so he hoped to be able to ¡°build real links into the curriculum¡± which will enable his students to graduate with the technical knowledge and marketing skills he had had to acquire for himself.

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Being part of a university also put an emphasis on research. During his own career as a soloist, Professor Lloyd Webber had taken particular pleasure in ¡°premiering completely forgotten works¡± such as Gustav Holst¡¯s Invocation, which he had discovered through research in the British Library.

Though most of the teaching staff are also practising musicians who don¡¯t (and shouldn¡¯t be expected to) do much research, he believed it was ¡°very healthy to encourage students to think outside the box and develop any special enthusiasms, whether about a particular composer or even something like posture. I want to produce an inquiring mindset in the students: ?what am I interested which is different from the next person and might even make me stand out from the crowd?¡±

matthew.reisz@tesglobal.com