Dear supporters,

We are closing the petition. We would like to thank each and every one of the nearly 7000 people from around the globe who have supported this campaign. 

We are devastated to share that the RSC leadership have chosen not to change their course of action in axing the RSC Music Department which has existed since the inception of the company in the 1960s. Nor has the RSC offered to collaborate with the campaign in exploring creative solutions instead of pursuing this catastrophic decision. For transparency we have updated all signatories in our 'Updates' section. 

We encourage you to write to the RSC directly to express your feelings about this decision. You can write to them directly at:

ExecutiveOffice@rsc.org.uk

Please write in your own words and tell them:

• why live music matters to you,
• why a Music Department matters,
• what the RSC represents in your life,
• why this decision is wrong.

Thank you for standing with us, for caring about this institution, and for speaking up for the people and practices that made the RSC what it was.

With best wishes,

Save Live Music RSC Campaign 



To the Board and Leadership of the Royal Shakespeare Company,

We write as supporters of the Royal Shakespeare Company, with admiration, concern, and a shared commitment to its future, regarding the recent proposal to permanently close the RSC Music Department. Such a decision would undo over sixty years of artistic heritage and remove a defining strand from the identity of one of Britain’s most important theatre institutions. Since the company’s founding, and earlier under the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, live music has been a constant; it has shaped productions on the Stratford stages, across national and international tours, in live cinema broadcasts, and commercial recordings that carry the RSC’s work to global audiences. 

We are calling on the RSC to reverse this proposal and publicly commit to protecting live music as an essential part of its work by reinstating its music department. 

The significance of music in Shakespeare’s work is enshrined on the RSC’s own website, where it notes that the plays contain more than 2,000 references to music, over 400 musical terms, and around 100 songs. Historically, the RSC has always prioritised live music in its productions and taken pride in being a leader of commissioning original and live music. The RSC’s former in-house ensemble performed a variety of scores by prominent British composers and the Music Department has been central to managing that work. Music is not an embellishment; it illuminates language, creates atmosphere, and connects audiences to a performance tradition reaching back more than four centuries. Live musical performance is part of the essence of Shakespeare; it is responsive, human, and impossible to replicate.

In the past year the RSC have opted to use electronic or recorded music in place of live musicians in many of their productions. We urge the RSC to not pursue this trend towards non-live music; it has the potential to drain the pool of talented musicians, in the Midlands and beyond, that the theatre has fostered over decades and, once gone, will be impossible to replace. 

We fully recognise the financial pressures currently facing the arts and particularly the RSC. But dissolving the Music Department is not a neutral restructuring, it is a permanent loss of expertise, infrastructure, and artistic capacity; once gone it cannot simply be reinstated. 

A Music Department is essential to the management and execution of the level of theatre for which the RSC is famed. The proposal to cut the department suggests that there will not be enough live music to warrant maintaining it. This is deeply concerning. The RSC is more than a regional theatre, it is a bastion of national cultural heritage supported by public funding and public trust, and the current RSC leadership should be acting as caretakers, protecting the legacy of the RSC to leave it in a better position for those that come after them.

We therefore respectfully urge the Royal Shakespeare Company to:

• Halt the proposed closure of the Music Department
• Commit publicly to safeguarding live music as central to the RSC’s artistic vision
• Work with musicians and theatre practitioners to create a sustainable model for live performance

Live music at the RSC is not a luxury, it is, and always has been, part of the RSC’s identity. We ask you, with respect and hope, to protect this legacy so that the RSC remains a place where Shakespeare lives, breathes, and sings - today, and for generations to come.

With sincere respect,
Signed