New college hitting top note with music students

THE former home of legendary Jilly’s Rockworld in Manchester has been converted into a £1m facility for specialist popular music college Access to Music.

The site at St James’ Buildings , 65 Oxford Street is now facilitating more than 150 students studying on a range of courses covering music performance, music technology and music business, with creative media set for launch in September.

Atul Bansal and the team at Sheila Bird Group, working with Bruntwoods project manager Daron Williams, completed the work at the former venue which has also been known as Fagins and Rafters to rock fans.

Established in 1992, Access to Music is run by chief executive Adrian Armstrong who used to frequent Rockworld.

The college aims to develop a student’s creativity, intellect and vocational ambition and has developed a bespoke music curriculum with Rockschool, the UK’s only popular music awarding body.

To date, the college has trained thousands of performers and producers, including BRIT award winning Ed Sheeran and chart topper Rita Ora.

The purpose-built centre is breathing new life into a building where many musical names once graced its floors and is creating a suite of rehearsal rooms, a full-size recording studio, spacious class rooms and a dedicated performance space (with a capacity of approx.100 people).

“This is the fourth Access to Music project we have delivered in the UK and working with a client over a period of time like this provides us with good insight and experience of how the space needs to function when it is lived in,” said Bansal.

“We discovered this space in our search for something unique, we were looking for space with heritage that could be reinvigorated. The space wasn’t being marketed, but when when we put it to Adrian as an option, we discovered it was in fact an old favourite haunt, so we had to make it happen!

Bruntwood property marketing director Colin Sinclair said: “This has been a very exciting project for the team here and we are proud to be bringing the space back into use for the music industry.
 
“Access to Music will bring a new era of creative talent through the doors of St James’ and it further enhances our plans for West Village.”