Introducing ARSM – our performance-only diploma

Wherever you are in the world, join us for a free webinar about our performance-only diploma.

Presented by ABRSM examiner and musician Meurig Thomas, you will discover:

• What’s involved in an ARSM exam

• Who the exam is for and its benefits for students

• The relationship between Grade 8 and ARSM

• Top tips for creating a programme

• How the marking criteria works in practice

There will also be a live Q&A session with Meurig.

Places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have any questions about the webinar, please email events@abrsm.ac.uk.

Meurig Thomas

Meurig was born on Ynys Môn, Wales, and speaks Welsh as his first language. He studied piano with David Smith at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, concurrently completing a BMus honours degree at the University of Sheffield where he was awarded a Petrie Watson Exhibition to further his academic studies at the Universities of Harvard and Princeton in the USA. He holds an MA in Music Education from the University of Reading as well as both the LRAM and ARCM diplomas.

He joined the BBC in 1990 as a Music Producer and has continued to broadcast, perform and write for both television and radio in Wales ever since. In 1992 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Music Education at the University Institute in Cardiff, forging a close musical partnership with the University of Vaxjo, Sweden and working regularly in Scandinavia. He combined this post working as a Registered Inspector of Schools and a visiting teacher at the British School of Paris before returning to full-time school teaching as Director of Music at Hereford Cathedral Junior School and, thereafter, Director of Music and Drama at Badminton School, Bristol.

He maintains a busy schedule of extra-curricular activities and is much in demand as an adjudicator, serving at the North London Festival, in 2015, The Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod in Kuala Lumpur 2017, the Gregynog Festival in 2019 and most recently at the Welsh International Piano Festival in 2020. He has served as a BAFTA (Wales) jury member and directed school ensembles at some of the most prestigious concert venues in the United Kingdom including St David’s Hall, Cardiff, St George’s Hall, Bristol, and Birmingham Symphony Hall. His innovative productions on the stage of the National Eisteddfod have attracted critical acclaim and during the COVID crisis in 2021, he instigated and directed an Online National Virtual Youth Music Eisteddfod for Wales. He has been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is also an active member of MENSA.

His current work for ABRSM includes serving as an examiner, trainer, moderator and presenter; in the latter role, he toured Malaysia in 2015 delivering a seminar series with violinist Yap Ling.