Bachelor of Music Business students, Will Evans, LucasDoppler and Louis Papantos, formed their own record label Zero Through Nine. (Credit: Box Hill Institute)
With a range of courses from Certificates to Masters Degrees, Box Hill Institute’s (BHI) Creative Industries offer courses in music performance, music composition, music business, fashion design, dance, visual art, audio & lighting, and graphic design among others. The courses have a strong emphasis on practical skills.
Senior Educator, Ben Fitzgerald said that in the creative arts, demonstrated work was equally as valuable as formal study.
‘Particularly from a TAFE perspective, it comes back to what a lot of TAFE courses use as their assessment, and that is competency.
‘People in the arts don’t work with other people in the arts just because of their qualifications; they work with them because of what they are capable of doing.’
Fitzgerald said that many of the students at BHI were people who were already established in the industry, studying to broaden what they can offer prospective employers and to hone skills in a specific technical, artistic or arts business area.
‘The International Music Business course is a case in point. You have people already working in the industry, who want to be able to connect with industry experts – they’re using the course to broaden their scope,’ he said.
And the courses are achieving successes, past student Benjamin Huang for example won the 2014 Tropscore competition, Australia’s largest film score competition and the sister competition to short film festival Tropfest.
This year the Institute will offer its first ever Masters in Music Performance (Contemporary Practice) as well as the Masters in International Music Business.
Fitzgerald said that the Music Business course is very flexible in its delivery.
‘People can come to the institute if they wish to do an intensive, where they might immerse themselves in a concentrated two weeks of study.
‘Alternatively, the intensives are all videoed and available online – so you can pretty much do any component of the course anytime you like, from anywhere in the world.
The International Music Business course already has contributors, from South Australia, Victoria and NSW and experts from the UK and the USA will be contributing to the development next year.
To apply & for more information about BHI’s wide range of professional creative courses, visit their website.
