Brighton-based music college WaterBear expands its careers and industry team

With extensive experience across all areas of the music and education industry, Andy Maclure and Sam Rushton join the already highly experienced team, many of whom are also working artists, with a wealth of knowledge of music management, artist development, tour management, live events and radio.

Andy Maclure as the recently joined Careers and Industry Director, has many years of experience within the music industry, including roles as a label manager, former drummer with the band Sleeper, and a songwriter and producer who has worked with artists such as Sophie Ellis Bextor and Mel C. Andy comments: "I'm delighted to be joining the amazing team at WaterBear, Brighton. WaterBear already offers students unbelievable access to music professionals and industry opportunities and I'm looking forward to helping expand this provision for our students and alumni."

Sam Rushton takes up the position of Events Co-ordinator. Sam is an artist manager, producer, songwriter and guitarist of indie pop band, Orchards.

Eve Massaad, Director of Marketing explains: “We are very excited to welcome the new team members together with their years of experience, skills and knowledge in the music industry. The role of Higher Education is to support those looking to build a career and within a changing world it is essential we have our finger on the pulse. By creating the right opportunities, we can help our students become resilient, adaptable and arm them with the experience and knowledge to help them navigate their future careers. By investing in our careers and industry department we aim to provide a fully rounded offer to our students and continue to ensure WaterBear is run by musicians, for musicians.”

At WaterBear, experiences within the music industry are core to everything they do. Through their many partners and contacts, the team continuously seek new and exciting opportunities countrywide and beyond to help students build connections and support their pathway into the industry. They are committed to providing performance opportunities at venues and festivals such as Tramlines, ArcTanGent and The Great Escape, and work experience and placements such as session work, sound engineering, production, event management, and marketing within venues, festivals and record labels, alongside access to events, gigs and conferences.

The team also sources opportunities for students to attend a huge variety of industry masterclasses and gain unrivalled behind the scenes access with bands and industry experts such as Royal Blood, Frogleap, Everything Everything, Idles, and Architects, providing incredible insights into the industry. Alongside these experiences students can also benefit from 1:1 artist development, careers support and mentoring.

WaterBear offers BA (Hons) degree and master’s courses made for today’s musicians, artists and industry professionals. The college has built an unrivalled reputation for its dedication to specialist one-to-one mentoring, focused class sizes, flexible course delivery and exclusive career development opportunities. WaterBear colleges are based in the heart of Brighton and Sheffield, and also offers a range of online distance learning courses too.

To find out more about careers and industry at WaterBear and the team please visit. https://waterbear.org.uk/

Students keen to find out more about the courses on offer at WaterBear Brighton or WaterBear Sheffield, or to enrol can visit: -

WaterBear Sheffield https://waterbear.org.uk/sheffield/

WaterBear Brighton https://waterbear.org.uk/brighton/