Hattie Upton-Dance

Hattie is an accomplished musician with first-hand experience in navigating the music industry. She currently co-manages her own band Carpark which launched in 2021, and has since helped them to achieve multiple Radio 1 plays, Spotify editorial playlists including New Music Friday UK, a brand partnership with Underground England and slots headlining festivals.

Growing up in Camden Town, Hattie has always been interested in live music particularly the indie/rock scene. She went to her first concert age 9 to see the 2000s pop/rock band McFly and started learning guitar soon after, by her teenage years she was playing in bands across the London circuit amongst the likes of Wolf Alice, Mystery Jets and The Libertines. She pursued this ambition whilst simultaneously studying media and photography at college, proving to be a highly talented photographer and filmmaker she won the ‘Best Short Film 2014’ award from Fine Arts College and had a brief stint working as a freelance live music photographer.

Encouraged by these achievements, and tempted by the career potential it would unlock, Hattie went on to study BA Media and Communications. This course included professional practices in photography, graphic design and marketing – expertise that Hattie was able to apply directly to the development of her university band WILLOH which she formed and managed herself. She graduated with a first-class honors degree and professional experience in marketing and content creation.

In 2017, Hattie moved back to London to pursue her dream of being a musician. She enrolled on the Higher Diploma in Music Performance course at ICMP to brush up on her guitar skills, and to gain more knowledge into the insights of the music industry. After graduating from ICMP with the ‘Best Guitarist’ award to her name, Hattie joined the faculty in 2018, starting as a session musician for the Higher Diploma and BA Music Performance courses, Hattie soon realized she loved teaching and working within higher education.

 In 2019, she started working as a teaching assistant on the BA Music Business and Entrepreneurship course and for the past three years, has used her experience to lead lectures specialising in content creation, graphic design, film-making and DIY music releases.

Hattie now lecturers on our BA (Hons) Live Event and Festival Management programme.