RCS and Muhlenberg College unveil exciting new partnership

Published: 13/06/2017

Scotland’s national conservatoire and one of the United States’ most highly-rated liberal arts colleges are today announcing an exciting new partnership which will enable top U.S. students to experience Scotland’s distinctive and world-leading performing arts education through a new transatlantic study programme.

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), ranked in the world top three of the prestigious QS World University Rankings for Performing Arts, is joining forces with Muhlenberg College, located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which offers the leading undergraduate theatre programme in the U.S. It enables high-performing American students to experience arts education in one of the world’s most successful multi-arts learning and teaching environments.

The partnership, the first of its kind for RCS, will see up to ten Muhlenberg students go through a rigorous application process each year who, once accepted, will join Modern Ballet, Production, Technology and Management, Contemporary Performance Practice, Music, Production Arts and Design students at the RCS’s award-winning campus in the centre of Glasgow for one or two academic terms.

Professor Jeffrey Sharkey, Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, said:

“We’re delighted to be working with Muhlenberg College to develop exciting new opportunities which will enrich both the learning experience of individual students and our cultural communities.

“It’s essential that emerging artists and performers are outward-looking, engaged and open to new experiences and opportunities for collaboration and we look forward to broadening and deepening our arts community, its impact and reach through special partnerships like this.

“We are excited at the potential this creates for new academic and student collaboration and look forward to welcoming our first Muhlenberg College students to Glasgow in the new academic year to study, learn and immerse themselves in all that Glasgow, Scotland and its national conservatoire have to offer.”

This year, Muhlenberg College has been named the top U.S. undergraduate college theatre programme for the second time by The Princeton Review.

John I. Williams, Jr., President of Muhlenberg College, said:

“Muhlenberg College is committed to providing our students with world-class opportunities that lead to powerful outcomes. This partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland offers our students the opportunity to receive world-class conservatoire training that complements Muhlenberg’s own top-rated programmes in theatre, dance and music. Both institutions share a common and unwavering commitment to excellence and to close collaboration between instructor and student. We know our performing arts students will be thrilled to have the opportunity to build upon what they’re learning at Muhlenberg by studying at RCS, while living in the heart of culturally rich Glasgow.”

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is a national and international centre of excellence for performing arts education. Celebrating its 170th anniversary in 2017, the RCS is one of the world’s leading multi-disciplinary conservatoires offering specialised pre-professional intensive teaching in music, drama, dance, film and production, as well as encouraging trans-disciplinary learning across its innovative curriculum.

Ranked as one of the world’s top three performing arts learning and teaching institutions, Scotland’s national conservatoire is internationally recognised for its ground-breaking work in advancing the performing arts and artists for the next generation.