Celebrating the arts, enriching lives, and engaging communities - 2026 highlights

Our students, graduates and staff continue to make an impact, across theatre, music, design, production and arts management, through their individual stories, and the contribution they make to culture, communities and the wider industry.

We have to start with a huge llongyfarchiadau to our latest graduates, who celebrated their extraordinary achievements at our graduation ceremonies this month.

As they leave us for careers across the creative industries, we can't wait to see what comes next.

We also welcomed our new Honorary Fellows, three of whom are outstanding graduates whose careers embody the values our training nurtures in our students: 

Head of Classical Music at London’s Southbank Centre, Toks Dada, award-winning set and costume designer Hayley Grindle, and Olivier Award-winning actor Anjana Vasan.

Their achievements demonstrate the influence RWCMD graduates have across the creative industries and on international stages.

The College provides a vital talent pipeline into Wales’s arts ecosystem, with our graduates enriching the arts landscape in Wales, making an impact across its creative sector.

Congratulations to lighting designer Katy Morrison, Gagglebabble co-founder and composer Lucy Rivers, writer-performers Nia Gandhi, Teleri Hughes, Designers Cory Shipp and Sophie Thomas and writer/actor Katie Elin-Salt, who have all been selected for our artistic partner Theatr Clwyd's artist development programmes.

Stiwdio Clwyd initiatives support the next generation of Welsh theatre-makers as they expand their practice.

From major television productions to community festivals, RWCMD talent continues to celebrate and promote Welsh culture.

'The Other Bennet Sister,' now on BBC iPlayer, has been a television highlight this year, delighting both critics and the public.

It showcases the talents of RWCMD Design for Performance graduates, while giving us a fresh look at one of Austen’s most beloved families.

Costume designer Sian Jenkins, alongside a team including fellow RWCMD graduates, brought the world to life through the empire-waist gowns, bonnets and ribbons.

You can see the costumes for the show, produced by Bad Wolf, up close at one of the filming locations, Dyffryn Gardens, near Cardiff, on display until August.

Wales's unique arts festival, the Eisteddfod, is celebrating 850 years of showcasing 'the richness and diversity of Welsh arts and artists.' And as usual, our grads, staff and students are bringing their skills to all the areas of the festival.

Our Scenic Arts students worked with community groups across South and West Wales, using their specialist craft skills to create an array of decorations for this important anniversary.

Bringing together local schools, the Windrush elders, and Scouts groups, the project celebrated Welsh culture, heritage and creativity through community collaboration.

Graduate designer Cordelia Ashwell, and her company Decordia, are creating the designs for the Eisteddfod, while College students, grads and staff will be performing at the festival.

They include Y Llais star Liam J Edwards, who has just released a powerful new Welsh language anthem, choral singing workshops, and Songs and Poetry of Pembrokeshire, led by tenor Rhys Archer.

Supporting, and growing that musical heritage is a vital part of the College’s role as the national conservatoire of Wales. As our Director of Music Tim Rhys-Evans reminded audiences when talking to Aled Jones on BBC's Songs of Praise, Wales's reputation as the Land of Song is built on generations of people singing together. 

And in the spirit of our Patron Saint, he suggested, ‘gwnewch y pethau bychain’, one of the small things we can all do is to sing, simple, but so powerful.

Giving students real-world experience is central to our training. We work in close partnership with both Welsh National Opera and BBC National Orchestra of Wales in supporting progression into professional work, with many RWCMD graduates going on to work across the wider UK and international opera sector.

Woodwind grad and College tutor, Will White is one of the latest to join BBC NOW.

He joins as Principal no.2 clarinet and Principal Eb clarinet, and  follows recent RWCMD alumni including Principal Trumpet Corey Morris, trombonist Dafydd Thomas, Lowri Taffinder on viola, and the many others before them.

Meanwhile, as part of BBC NOW’s Composition: Wales, RWCMD Composition students, Elaina Sophie, Ben Lawton and Harry Woodman have had their new orchestral music workshopped, performed and recorded by BBC NOW.

Could it be magic - or is it the work of our amazing stage managers, bringing some of the world's biggest production across theatre and live events to life?

This summer some of our grads returned to Cardiff with Take That's ‘Circus Live’ tour. One of the most groundbreaking live productions in UK pop history, it originally came to Cardiff in 2009, when to young Stage Management student Kevin Smith, working on such a huge theatrical stadium tour was just a dream.

Now he joined fellow grads from across the years in the ultimate team, over 250 people working together to deliver an incredible show: working as Stage Management Production Supervisor alongside recent grad Sophie Thomas, with lighting designer, grad and Fellow Tim Routledge, and freelance Production Supervisor/ Production Manager and visiting lecturer Helen Smith as Show Caller.

Perhaps most importantly, our graduates continue to show how their training translates into successful and varied careers, from the West End to international tours, from television heritage series to shaping new Musical Theatre productions.

Kirsty Gardiner hadn’t yet graduated from her Arts Management degree, but substituted her summer placement with her new job as Deputy Company Manager for Disney’s ‘Hercules’: The Musical on the West End.

Her training gave her the confidence, skills and knowledge to re-enter the world of work, but within ‘her ideal career space’. And in an example of RWCMD grads supporting the next generation, her first placement at Wales Millennium Centre was under the mentorship of another MA Arts Management alumni.

And in another example of the College empowering students to follow their dreams: five years ago, Jack Sampson applied to our MA Stage & Event Management course with one goal.

He wanted to work in dance, to honour his family legacy of professional dancers, and to have opportunities to travel for work.

‘I came to RWCMD having basic knowledge of stage management. After the first year of training I had the confidence to work on large-scale productions across stage, lighting and sound. This is where my professional career in stage management began.’

Fast forward and Jack’s just completed his third international tour as Stage Manager for Rambert’s Peaky Blinders - 'The Redemption of Thomas Shelby' in Beijing.

Our students not only perform in new work, but contribute to its development while collaborating with industry professionals: last year Musical Theatre student Katie Louise Pritchard, along with her fellow classmates, worked with US production company Hugo Six and the creative team behind the new musical Private Jones, presenting their research and development work to industry professionals.

And now Katie has been cast alongside fellow RWCMD Musical Theatre grad Luke McCall.

Private Jones integrates sign language, live captioning and a Foley soundscape, with a cast including deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing performers, supported by a largely Welsh creative team. This production has been reworked with the input from RWCMD students, to ensure the story is told with authenticity, for the London production this Christmas.

And our multi-instrumentalist graduates are making their mark on the musical theatre world: Thom Conroy, performed on the West End in ‘The Great Gatsby’, Katie Mogford has working with graduate and Mercury Prize nominee, James Mainwaring on ‘Into the Woods’ at London’s South Bank, and Caroline Richardson, has travelled the world performing with P&O Cruises.

And the Vita Quartet, made up of current post-graduate string players, donned their bonnets earlier this year, as they were invited by our partners, and series producers, Bad Wolf to perform at the London launch of The Other Bennet Sister.

Passionate about outreach and education, they are the innovative Quartet-in-Residence at Cardiff's Norwegian Church Arts Centre, working with the community and going into local schools with our resident strings quartets, the Carducci and Fibonacci Quartets.

The Quartet has now been selected for the prestigious Trinity Laban Centre of Ensemble Excellence in London, from September, to help continue their develop as a quartet.

Our acting graduates continue to make their mark across stage and screen, with careers taking them from Shakespeare's Globe to the Marvel Universe.

Acting students can be cast while they're still training: in the theatre, final year actor Busa Wickramasuriya took time out from his role as Silvius in’ As You Like It’ at Shakespeare's Globe, alongside grads Thomas Josling and Katherine Pearce, to come and graduate with his classmates. 

Fellow actor Matthew Doswell couldn't make his graduation as he's already in the West End transfer of the Old Vic's acclaimed production of ‘Arcadia’ at the Duke of York's Theatre.

Meanwhile on television, Alex Dunne makes his screen debut in the ‘Boys of Tommen’ series on Amazon Prime, filmed during his final term.

On screen, graduates and associates continue to appear in some of television and film's biggest productions, from 'Silo' star and Honorary Associate Alexandria Riley, to Tom Rhys Harries heading to the big screen as 'Clayface', and Lauren Morais joining the Marvel universe in Disney+ ‘VisionQuest’.

Fresh from performing as Shakespeare in the West End, alongside Ncuti Gatwa, acting graduate Edward Bluemel has been entrusted with one of the most iconic roles in British crime fiction, cast by the BBC as a young Hercule Poirot. 

Whether the famous moustache will make an appearance remains to be seen, but he'll be in good hands, as behind the camera, MA Acting graduate Rebecca Durbin is Executive Producer.

One of our key priorities is widening access to creative opportunities and ensuring talented people from all backgrounds can succeed.

Scholarships continue to play an essential role in opening pathways into arts training. This year students received prestigious awards from organisations including New Earth Theatre and the Laurence Olivier Bursary scheme, helping ensure financial barriers do not prevent talented young people from pursuing careers in the arts.

Final year actor Ashleigh Lai was awarded the New Earth 2026 Constellation Creative Drama Student Bursary, which supports the pathway from graduating student to professional actor for British East and South East Asian actors on stage and screen.

During June, the month of Pride, Students' Union Vice-President Ash Penny, was named one of WalesOnline's Pinc List 'ones to watch', recognising the most influential LGBT+ people in Wales.

As a transgender student, Ash brought his own experience to his role as Student Union Vice President for Welfare and Inclusion, recognising how important it is to have role models and visibility.

He's recently curated and performed his one-man show Translucidity, focusing on his experience transitioning, and the wider political climate.

Whether our graduates are performing on international stages, creating new work, leading cultural organisations or engaging communities across Wales, they take with them the College's key themes, that we are here for the arts, Wales and the future.