Image: Splaat Media

PGCHE
​Maria’s portfolio combines her three loves: Education, engaging people with the Arts and helping musicians and artists to develop and realise projects.
 
Having grown up surrounded by music, as a player, educator and member of the audience, Maria is passionate about the importance of the Arts and the value of artists.
 
Her unique set of skills and experience has grown from a career encompassing music education, business education, orchestral management and event management. She has excelled as a member of both large and small organisations and as an entrepreneur creating startups; building her own business from scratch and working with others to develop various enterprises.
 
Qualifications including BMus(Hons), LTCL (Performance), PGCHE, FHEA and MBA and over 20 years experience in music management and events give her both theoretical and practical insight. 
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Music is central to Maria’s life. Her enthusiasm and experience drives her to empower others by facilitating the creation of projects and lifelong learning.
 
She has worked with artists on the conception and delivery of Arts projects, right through from developing an idea, planning the nitty gritty such as budget and cash flow, researching and developing networks and liaising with artists, to marketing, liaising with donors and sponsors, and running front-of-house at events. 

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A Passion to Educate

Maria grew up playing music, studying oboe, saxophone, piano and recorder. She started instrumental teaching at the age of 16 and launched her business, The Music Workshop Company (MWC), when she was 25. MWC creates workshops to meet specific client needs and learning outcomes. Much of Maria’s enjoyment from the work comes through developing or designing projects, delivering workshops and preparing participants for performance, working with schools, community groups and businesses across Britain. Read Maria's interview with Music Teacher Magazine.
 
Maria’s first experience of business came from a desire to develop The Music Workshop Company. Initially she followed gut reaction, learning by trial and error about spotting opportunities, branding and customer service. As the business matured, she continued her learning with the help of local enterprise agency advisors, networking and her own research. The Music Workshop Company celebrates it's 23rd anniversary in September 2025.

In 2021 Maria was commissioned to write a "How to Become ... A Workshop Leader" guide for the ISM. This lead to a webinar and an interview with Music Teacher magazine.
 
On joining the teaching team at the University of Hertfordshire Business School (now Hertfordshire Business School) in 2007, where she lectured in Arts Marketing, Maria began to explore more of the academic concepts around business. She would later create and deliver modules on small business and entrepreneurship in the music industry, before completing her MBA.
 
From her first experience of lecturing in business skills to the Business School’s Creative Arts students, Maria moved on to teaching small business, entrepreneurship, business management, business ethics, marketing, HR and strategy to students at the Business School and in the School of Creative Arts. 

Maria was a Guest Lecturer at IMEA, an International Business School in Besançon, France, lecturing in Service Marketing and Strategic Marketing from 2010 – 2016.
 
In 2012, Maria was part of Team Venture, a project that divided over 1,000 students into teams and mentored them as they developed new business ideas. Her team won the "Enterprise Educators" Award at the 2012 National Enterprise Educators Awards.

In 2015, Maria was invited to take on the role of Programme Leader for the BA(Hons) Music Industry Management. A key part of this role was leading a two year period of planning and consultancy, for six-yearly programme review of the BA(Hons) Music Industry Management. This process involved working with the current teaching team, current students, alumni and music industry experts to update the programme to ensure graduates are work-ready at the end of their degree. The new degree was validated in 2017 and rolled out in 2018.

In April 2016, Maria won the Hertfordshire Student Union staff prize "You're Awesome" after being nominated by the Music Industry Management students.

Maria's role at the University of Hertfordshire mixed classroom teaching with her role of Enterprise, Employability and Outreach champion for the School of Creative Arts. In this role, Maria supported students preparing for employment or to launch their own business while developing links with feeder schools and colleges. Maria's Outreach role also encompassed her position as Head of the Hertfordshire Cultural Education Partnership (HCEP) A partnership that brings together education and cultural providers to ensure all young people living and learning in Hertfordshire are accessing a varied and rewarding cultural life. Maria left the University of Hertfordshire after 18.5 years in the summer of 2025.

Team Venture: Dr Norbert Morawetz, Professor Nigel Culkin, Maria Thomas Image Pete Stevens

Music Management
Maria has worked with Arts organisations managing international tours, developing new creative visions and overseeing finances, fundraising, planning and human resources.  Her career in music management began straight out of college (Trinity College of Music, now Trinity Laban) with a post in the orchestra office of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (now Royal Ballet and Opera). Her role at the ROH included booking stage bands, recruitment, coordinating health and safety (including the Noise at Work programme), organising chamber music concerts and liaising with conductors and stage management. This period included a career highlight for Maria, working with the then Music Director of the Royal Opera, Bernard Haitink, KBE. 
 
She left this position in 2002 to start her own business, and currently focuses on managing The Music Workshop Company, leading a team of professional freelance musicians and administrators.
 
Ties with the Opera House continued, however, when then ROH Concertmaster, Peter Manning, engaged her to help with the launch and development of his new orchestra, the Manning Camerata. Between 2005 and 2008 the orchestra performed at venues across England including the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St Albans Abbey, Philharmonic Hall, the Oxford Playhouse and the Globe. The orchestra also played at private events for their sponsors Barclays Capital (now Barclays Wealth) at the Louvre, Paris and Palace of the Knights of Malta, Rome.

In 2012, Maria was a founding Trustee of the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival, working with Cellist, Guy Johnston to launch the inaugural Festival. Maria took on the role of Festival Manager in 2013, overseeing the development and growth of the next 2 Festivals, working with Guy in his role of Artistic Director. Artists appearing at the Festival during this period included The Sixteen with Harry Christophers, Alasdair Beatson, Nicholas Daniel, Ruby Hughes,  Jack Liebeck, Tom Poster, Lawrence Power, Mark Simpson, Hugo Ticciati, the Navarra Quartet and young artists from Future Talent. Maria continued her links with the Festival, often be found page turning for pianists before returning to the team as the Learning and Participation Manager in 2025.

Image: Splaat Media

Training
Maria is a skilled and empathic teacher and facilitator with broad experience of developing and delivering training sessions. As Artistic Director of The Music Workshop Company she designs client-led team building activities and communication skills training, while her role at the University of Hertfordshire involved her training artists and arts organisations in specialist arts marketing topics such as fundraising, pricing, social media and branding for the University’s Arts Marketing Symposium. She lead ideation sessions at both the Business School and School of Creative Arts where students are guided in developing projects and business ideas and exploring their professional and creative potential.

In 2015, Maria supported early career musicians as a Mentor as for the AIM Startups Programme.

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Networking
A career encompassing many areas of the music industry has afforded Maria a wide network of contacts in classical music, in the live and recorded music industry and in local business and arts networks in-and-around Hertfordshire. 
 
With experience of setting up and running networking groups, Maria has an excellent understanding of the importance of networks to create and deliver projects. 
 
She has run workshops on developing professional networks, including advice on building confidence in networking.

Research
Maria has undertaken a number of research projects in the field of music and business. She was commissioned by the Music Publishers Association (MPA) to undertake a study into the buying habits of musicians and music teachers for a conference for music shops. She garnered responses to the survey, which looked at how musicians and music teachers use high-street and online music retailers, from over 100 musicians and music organisations in her own professional network.
 
In 2017, Maria worked with Welsh National Opera (WNO) on research into the views and experience of the company’s Friends and Donors. From the findings of this study, Maria and University of Hertfordshire colleague, Dr. Peter Fraser, made recommendations to WNO on how to develop their audiences and grow their ‘Friends’ organisation.
 
For her MBA dissertation, Maria carried out research on the motivations of freelance musicians who work with her at the Music Workshop Company, exploring the psychological contract and what incentivises musicians to work for the organisation. This research has informed Maria’s work with freelance musicians on other projects, such as the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival.

During the initial phase of HCEP, Maria carried out the scoping project to identify how the Partnership should be developed, exploring the local and national context with mini case studies through primary and secondary research leading to recommendations. Maria then took on the role of Lead of HCEP and worked with colleagues to explore and develop the Cultural offer for children and young people across Hertfordshire both in and out of educational settings and through establishing a network of schools, councils and wider Arts organisations including the local Music Service.

Eden Sinfonia, Image: James Cannon