Amy Shaw

Session Musician

BA (Hons) Professional Musicianship student Amy Shaw hadn’t even officially graduated when she landed herself an amazing opportunity to tour the UK as a live session musician with new musical theatre production ‘Six’.

The show sees Amy augmenting her already varied musical CV by undertaking guitar duties within a band who perform live onstage with six lead actresses on vocal duties.

Amy secured this role by submitting her CV, some promo’ photos, recordings and social media links to the producers of the show and was hired within the same week. After that, she dove straight into rehearsals with the company before hitting the road for residencies at theatres across the UK – including a month-long stint at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Arts Theatre in London’s West End.

Amy claims she owes much of her on-stage confidence to her performance course at BIMM Brighton.

“I’d say studying at BIMM gave me the confidence in myself as a musician as it pushed me in so many ways, not just improving my skills as a guitarist but also my confidence in playing with other people and believing in myself as a musician. Before coming to BIMM, I really lacked confidence and doubted myself a lot. Now, I feel at home on-stage and it’s where I love to be, which is a major difference from the first time I played in class where I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.”

When asked what advice she would offer to any new or prospective BIMM students, Amy had these choice words to say;

“Make the most of every single opportunity BIMM gives you. Be the person who signs up to all the masterclasses, go to the networking events and meet people, because you never know what can happen from those friendships. Do a stupid amount of auditions for the End of Term gigs and play as many shows with as many people as you can.”

If you’re interested in studying a BA (Hons) Professional Musicianship Degree course like Amy, click here.