Beckie Morley

Since graduating, Beckie has forged a successful career combining her musical passions and the specialisms she developed during her degree. A busy community musician and businesswoman, Beckie’s rapidly-growing business works with care homes across the UK. Now a multi-award winning brand and leading music provider in the care home industry, Musical Moments delivers music in over 23 locations across the country, working with over 52,000 vulnerable people in the community each year.

Beckie grew up in Congleton, Cheshire and decided she wanted a musical career when fourteen years old. She had been playing violin for several years, and was a member of her local youth orchestra. A school teacher told her that 'it was a silly idea, it'd never happen'. This only drove her to work harder, and to be offered a place at Leeds Conservatoire to study for the BA (Hons) in Music.

Her first study was the violin, and she was a member of the Leeds Conservatoire Community Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonietta. She also has a great love of theatre and working with young people, and spent her university years assisting, directing and playing for lots of shows with community and university groups.

She took modules in community music and conducting. Her community music project was at The Mount - a dementia hospital in Leeds. She chose this project because her grandma was living with dementia at the time – it was an emotional, yet educational, experience. She graduated from Leeds Conservatoire in 2011 with a 2:1. Since then, she has managed to forge a career that uses all three of her specialisms.

Moving back home, she began researching community music with elderly people. Eight years on, and she has turned her research into a successful business called Musical Moments. She began running the business in local care homes, and noticed how well the residents responded to the music and activities, and the concept began to grow. After several years and high demand for the activity, she decided to franchise the model and offer the Musical Moments career to other musicians, looking for day time musical work, which is rare to find. 

Musical Moments now has 16 franchisees working from Surrey to Glasgow and bringing live music, social interaction and engagement to residents and people living with dementia in care homes. The business continues to grow at a rapid pace with new team members joining every few months.

'This is one of the most rewarding jobs you can ever do... working with people who really appreciate the music that you're making and knowing you've made their day better' says Beckie. 'I deliver two or three sessions in care homes every day, and each session is totally different'.

Over the years the company has been awarded and nominated for several different awards (Silk FM Local Hero Award, Theo Paphitis #SBS Award and the East Cheshire Chamber of Commerce & Enterprise Award). In 2015 they were presented with a grant of £7,000 from Cheshire East Council to increase their levels of outreach work. This year Beckie has just been announced as a regional finalist at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2019.

Musical Moments has several members of part-time staff and has created a brand new career for musicians; they currently have 4 Leeds Conservatoire graduates within the organisation, including 2010 MA graduate Deborah Pennington who is a franchise owner for Leeds and Wakefield with several of her own part-time staff (including some Leeds Conservatoire alumni!)

In her spare time, Beckie still continues her passion for theatre, regularly acting as musical director for local productions and sometimes taking on roles on the stage. Beckie frequently returns to Leeds Conservatoire to give talks to students on the Community Music module.

Find out more about what our successful graduates have been up to in our Alumni Profiles

Are you a Leeds Conservatoire graduate? Reconnect with us here