After twelve years as Principal of the Guildhall School, Professor Barry Ife will be retiring in early 2017. We are therefore using this site to collect messages for Barry and contributions towards his leaving gifts from colleagues, students and friends over the coming weeks.

If you would like to make a contribution then please click ‘Donate’ opposite and also leave a short message at the same time. All messages will be forwarded on to Barry alongside his leaving gifts in due course. If you run into any difficulties - or want to leave a longer message! - then please email us at barry.leaving@gsmd.ac.uk.

With thanks from ‘The organisers’

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About Professor Barry Ife CBE

Professor Barry Ife became Principal of the Guildhall School in September 2004 and has led the School through a period of unprecedented change.

His achievements include leading the School’s application for Taught Degree-Awarding Powers; achieving recognition for Guildhall’s music outreach and opera programmes through two Queen’s Anniversary Prizes (2005 and 2007); repositioning the School within the higher education sector; and reviving and strengthening strategic partnerships with a range of performing arts organisations such as the Barbican Centre, LSO and Royal Opera House. He has made the Guildhall School the UK’s single largest provider of music education to under 18s by incorporating the Centre for Young Musicians (CYM), and in 2013 he realised the School’s long-held ambition to build additional facilities at Milton Court, including state-of-the-art performance venues, rehearsal and teaching spaces.

His most recent achievement was to secure recognition by HEFCE for the School’s ‘world-leading’ teaching, bringing with it much-needed additional funding needed to maintain and develop Guildhall’s distinctive excellence in the UK and across the world.