Music director of CoMA London ensemble

About CoMA

The vision of CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) is for contemporary music to be open to everyone, celebrating participation in new music-making as a meaningful and essential part of our lives. CoMA’s mission is to create a culture of musical participation and collaboration. The organisation establishes environments for amateur, emerging and acclaimed music-makers of all backgrounds and abilities to build musical communities and new repertoires. We exist to share those unique experiences and practices as widely as possible.

You can find out more here.

CoMA London is CoMA’s resident ensemble in the capital. It is a mixed ability group of about 25 musicians — including strings, woodwind, brass, percussion and piano — who are passionate about making and supporting new music. We take inclusivity very seriously and we have a range of ages, experiences and musical abilities in the ensemble. You will need to design repertoire and rehearsals to keep very good players interested while supporting all our musicians to perform to their best.

We work towards concerts — usually three or four a year — and often work directly with the composers. In recent projects we have worked with Edward Nesbit, Lloyd Coleman, Héloise Werner and Nonclassical associate composers. The ensemble has performed at venues such as Iklectik, King’s Place and St John’s Smith Square, and has appeared at national festivals.

The aim is always to create a compelling event that excites and challenges our audience. This requires a mix of high expectations, careful allocation of parts, energetic rehearsals and clear direction on what and how to improve.

We also actively support composers. We have two composers in residence in the ensemble every year, undertake projects with student composers and support more established composers to write for amatuer groups. You will need excellent communication skills to motivate the next generation of composers and give feedback with diplomacy.

You will have a lot of opportunity to explore creative programmes. Alongside our usual rehearsals we will often have workshops on improvisation and group composing, and we run evenings in which members have the opportunity to try out their own compositional ideas with the ensemble.

We are very committed to our unique group and many of us have been playing together for years.

Read more here.

Job details

Rehearsals

Every Tuesday evening during term times (three terms of 10-15 rehearsals each year)

Location

Queen Mary University, Mile End, London, E1 4NS

Pay

£110 per rehearsal

£300 per concert (expect 3 a year)

£200 termly admin fee (3 a year)

Deadline for applications

Friday 11 April 2025, 5pm

Job to begin

September 2025

Job duration

Permanent contract, with a minimum term of one year

For full information and how to apply, please visit the application page.