Andy Stott

Professor Andy Stott is the first Head of Popular Music at the RNCM, Musical Director of the RNCM Session Orchestra and the founding CEO of Northern Quarter Records. His career as a music educator has seen him heading music departments at a number of top institutions in addition to examiner roles in the UK and abroad and mentoring for rock and pop festivals.

As a performer, Andy has worked as a session drummer and percussionist in a wide variety of musical genres, including Jazz Orchestras, Brass Bands, Symphony Orchestras, Choirs, Musical Theatre Pit Orchestras, and Rock and Pop Bands. His performing career developed into working as a freelance Musical Director, and in that role he has appeared on the international stage performing with singers and musicians across the UK and in Barcelona, Lake Garda, Lisbon, Brisbane, Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles, Seoul, Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai.

Andy also has extensive experience as a MD in musical theatre – credits include; West Side Story, Les Miserables, Evita, Grease, Joseph, Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, STOMP and The Full Monty. Andy was a producer and the musical supervisor for the first UK tour and West End run of the award-winning Broadway musical RENT.

Andy has been the recipient of four RNCM Student-Led Teaching Awards; two for his musical direction of the RNCM Session Orchestra, and two for Employability Enhancement. In 2015 he became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and in 2017 was appointed to the ABRSM’s Music Education Advisory Committee and to the board of the Association for Popular Music Education.