The IMR's Musical Research Degrees pages are intended as a resource to guide potential graduate students to courses of graduate study that may suit their interests and specialisms. The listings below are the beginnings of this resource, which will hopefully grow over time. Departments are encouraged to submit brief summary accounts of their research degree programmes to music@sas.ac.uk following the models below.
Bath Spa University
The School of Music and Performing Arts at Bath Spa University particularly welcomes practice-led proposals that incorporate a portfolio of creative work, as well as thesis-based submissions. Recent funded research projects include an investigation into the composition and performance practice of verbal notation, visual music, multipart series, and songwriting. All our staff are active as practitioners, and full details of their specific research interests and profiles, as well as information about the research environment in the School, can be found on the Centre for Musical Research website.
Research can be supported in the following areas in particular: composition (electro-acoustic and instrumental); sonic art; experimental music; visual music; contemporary performance and performance practice; songwriting; music analysis; music in Bath; historical performance; early notations; preparing critical and performing editions; medieval and renaissance musicology; early music; ethnomusicology
For more information, please visit the CMR website
University of Cambridge
As one of the world’s leading centres of research in most areas of music studies, the Cambridge Faculty of Music has an exceptional record in training scholars and composers. As well as internationally renowned academic staff, Cambridge offers unsurpassed resources for advanced study, including physical facilities, library and archival collections, research colloquia, and frequent visits by distinguished scholars. Equally important is the lively and supportive environment provided by our large postgraduate community, with around 50 taught and research graduate students in residence at any one time. Our postgraduate programmes include
• a one-year M.Phil. in Music Studies, within which you can specialise in Musicology; Theory, analysis and criticism; Ethnomusicology; Jazz, popular and media music; Performance studies; Music and science; or Composition. Combining structured teaching with a high proportion of supervised study, this is a free-standing programme but is particularly suitable as a basis for doctoral studies at Cambridge or elsewhere
• a one-year M.Mus. in Choral Studies, which combines training in choral conducting and related studies with placements within leading college Chapel choirs
• a doctoral programme, available full-time over three years or part-time over five.
For details of these programmes, and of what the Cambridge Faculty of Music can offer you, visit www.mus.cam.ac.uk/applicants/graduate/.
University of Hull
Music at the University of Hull offers a taught MMus with specialisation in three ‘pathways’ - composition, performance or musicology.
For further details see http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/drama-and-music/music/postgraduate-studies/taught-mmus.aspx
Hull offers the postgraduates research degrees of MPhil and PhD. Furthermore, a PhD in advanced performance studies is offered, which is examined by a recital (and a portfolio or professional-level performances) and a thesis of 50000 words.
For further details see http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/drama-and-music/music/postgraduate-studies/research-degrees.aspx
Kingston University
Research degrees in Music at Kingston University London
We welcome applicants for research degrees (MA by Research/PhD) in Music. Kingston researchers focus on 20th-century and contemporary music across the spectrum of musical styles, with a strong emphasis on composition and technology-led composition; multimedia, including composition for film and television; applied musical research, including music education; and history, analysis and criticism. We have successfully supervised both thesis-based work and practice-based research degrees.
For more information about what we have to offer and how to apply, please follow this link:
http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/research/degrees/
Taught Masters in Music at Kingston University
MMus Composing for Film and TV
MMus Electroacoustic Composition
MMus Music Performance
MMus Production of Popular Music
MA Music Education
MA Music
Duration: 1 year full-time
2 years part-time
Course Philosophy
The above programmes aim to provide varied and flexible Masters courses for performers, music educators, composers, and popular music producers. The overarching aim of these programmes is to stimulate an enquiring creative mind and to encourage research, initiative, critical analysis and independence of thought. You will further develop your musical skills and knowledge and will also focus upon a particular research topic in the major project with specialist supervision.
Course Content
The full-time course consists of three/four programme-specific taught core modules, Colloquia, 2 optional modules chosen from a wide range of subjects, Researching Music, and the Major Project in a relevant subject.
The part-time course consists of three/four programme specific taught core modules, Colloquia, and Researching Music in Year 1 and two optional modules plus the Major Project in Year 2.
Please follow this link for more information:
http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/schools/performance/music/postgraduate/
University of Lancaster
MA in Contemporary Arts Research
Pathways | Computer Music, Dance, Design, Digital Arts, Drama, Fine Art, Interdisciplinary Arts, Live Art, Music (Musicology, Performance and Composition), and Theatre and Performance
MA Contemporary Arts Research is a must if you want to progress to a PhD, including a PhD by practice, in the contemporary arts. The course is specifically designed for graduates in the above disciplines who want to prepare for doctoral study, either by integrating creative practice with theoretical or historical work, or by more traditional methods assessed by thesis only. The first two terms consist of weekly seminars on a range of generic and subject-specific research methods (including practice-based methods), and an optional study trip. Assessment is through written work, audiovisual presentations, and a research project leading to a written thesis, or an art work or event (e.g. a performance, portfolio, exhibition, DVD or website), or a combination of these. Students meet with a supervisor as well as with the course director regularly throughout your study.
PhD
Computer Music; Drama, Theatre and Performance; Dance; Design; Digital Arts; Fine Art; Interdisciplinary Arts; Live Art; Musicology, Music Performance and Composition.
LICA offers postgraduate students the opportunity to undertake research in any of the above disciplines within one of the most vibrant and supportive interdisciplinary postgraduate communities in the UK. Your research can either be practice-based or it can lead to an academic written thesis. The relationship between theory and practice, whilst approached in different ways, forms the central theme that links and shapes the Institute's research priorities and orientation.
URL: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/lica/postgraduate/
University of Leeds
The URLs for the taught programmes are:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pg/postgraduate_taughtprog_applied_psychology.shtml
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pg/postgraduate_taughtprog_mmuscomp.shtml
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pg/postgraduate_taughtprog_mmusmusicology.shtml
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pg/postgraduate_taughtprog_mmusperform.shtml
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pg/postgraduate_taughtprog_mmustech.shtml
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pg/postgraduate_taughtprog_diploma.shtml
University of Oxford
The Faculty of Music at Oxford has one of the largest and liveliest communities of graduate students in the United Kingdom. Usually about 25 new students enter every year, coming from countries all around the world. Graduate students have the benefit of a team of international experts to supervise their research, access to outstanding libraries, and the stimulus of a committed group of like-minded students and scholars in many subject areas. The University, the colleges and the city of Oxford provide a lively and diverse musical, academic and cultural atmosphere. Subject areas, approaches, and modes of study are very varied. Students may concentrate on Western music history (from chant to film music), source studies, music theory, aesthetics and criticism, composition and analysis, musical instruments, ethnomusicology, musical performance and interpretation. Many individual research projects are unique in their blend of approaches; frequently they extend into other academic disciplines such as literature, art history, theatre and film studies, philosophy or general history.
The MSt in Music offers an introduction to the broad range of current methodologies and approaches in music scholarship, with the possibility of specialising in either musicology (broadly conceived), composition or performance. The MPhil in Music is a two-year course whose first year is identical to the MSt. The second year of the MPhil gives the opportunity to apply and expand the skills acquired in the first. The degrees of DPhil and MLitt, with specialisation in Musicology or Composition, are awarded upon successful completion of a substantial original contribution to these fields prepared over the course of usually two years for MLitt and three or four years for DPhil. Students embarking on these degree courses are normally expected to have a Master's degree in music or equivalent, or they may first take the MSt in Music at Oxford.
Teaching is offered by the professors, readers and lecturers in the Faculty of Music who hold University appointments. Other Faculty members, such as college fellows and lecturers and senior research fellows, may assist with graduate teaching and supervision. All graduates have an academic supervisor in the Faculty and an advisor in their college. The Faculty offers several series of public lectures and musical events, as well as research colloquia particularly designed for graduates, with internationally renowned figures in musicology, composition or related fields.
For links to further information about application, degrees, and funding, please see http://www.music.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate-studies.html or contact the Director of Graduate Studies.
Oxford Brookes University
The Music Department at Oxford Brookes University is internationally recognised as a centre of excellence in research and we warmly welcome applications from prospective PhD students who would like to work with us. We can offer a vibrant environment for research in Historical Musicology, Popular Music Studies, and Composition and Sonic Art. The most recent RAE identified world-leading research in Opera Studies, Popular Music, and Sonic Art.
Our subject expertise is unusually broad. We are able to offer doctoral supervision in the following areas:
Opera (particularly Puccini, Wagner, Strauss, Verdi and Smyth)
Operatic culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Music in 19th- and 20th-century culture; music and national identities
Reception studies, canon formation, historiography and critical musicology
Music, gender and religion in the early modern period
Popular music (particularly Radiohead, Elvis Costello and The Beach Boys)
Historiographical and theoretical topics in popular music and song writing
Film music
Music journalism
Composition and sonic art
The department hosts three specialist research units:
OBERTO (Oxford Brookes: Exploring Research Trends in Opera)
PMRU (Popular Music Research Unit)
SARU (Sonic Art Research Unit)
We offer an MA in Music with pathways in ‘Music on Stage and on Screen’, ‘Music in Nineteenth-Century Culture’, ‘Music and Popular Culture’ and ‘Contemporary Practice in Composition’. Several Interdisciplinary Arts Practices MAs (taught jointly by Music and Fine Art) are also available.
More information can be found at the following webpages (follow the links to find out more about individual staff research interests):
Research: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/music/research/
PhDs: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/music/phd_study
Masters programmes: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/music/postgraduate/ and http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/artandmusic/
Royal Academy of Music
The Academy's research degrees are aimed at musicians who already have highly developed skills and focused career aspirations. Students work with an individual supervisor and a team of creative staff at the Academy to develop their work through engaging in a substantial research project. This will normally be directly connected to and driven by creative activity as a performer or composer but will also require analytical thought and a critical context.
The Academy houses a range of collections (including one of the world’s most important collections of stringed instruments and an extensive playing collection of 19th-century pianos) which include the archives of many important musicians and marked performance scores, orchestral parts, reviews, diaries, contracts and recordings. The Academy particularly welcomes applications for research degrees that focus on aspects of our collections and issues of performance practice or composition. For details of the collections please follow the link below:
http://www.ram.ac.uk/collections
Since the introduction of the research degree programme in 2000, the Academy has made advances in establishing approaches to the disciplines of practice-based research that are distinctive to the institution and its environment. These have been encouraged through an ongoing series of research workshops held in the museum, and through educational developments on the taught degree programmes. Research degree students are thus invited to become part of an active community and to take a lead in furthering practice-based approaches to research questions .
The Academy offers two-year MPhil and three-year PhD awards as a college of the University of London. The closing date for receipt of applications (MPhil in the first instance, with transfer to PhD usually taking place in the second year of study) is in January.
For further information, including details of teaching staff and our Code of Practice, please follow the link below:
http://www.ram.ac.uk/departments?departmentid=46
Royal Northern College of Music
RNCM Research Degrees Programme and Studentships 2012-2013
The RNCM is firmly established as a leading centre for advanced study not only in music performance and composition, but also in theoretical and applied music research. Its MPhil / PhD programme provides an opportunity to conduct high-level research within the dynamic, creative, and supportive environment of an internationally recognised conservatoire.
Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees are validated by Manchester Metropolitan University and awarded by RNCM. There are four specialist pathways:
• Composition in a variety of media and genres
• Musicology, including the historical, analytical and cultural study of music
• Music Psychology, including both quantitative and qualitative research in the fields of expert music performance and training; music education and pedagogy; music and health
• Performance, including performance practice and practice-as-research.
The RNCM currently offers (i) an AHRC-funded Postgraduate Research Studentship, (ii) an RNCM Postgraduate Research Studentship, both of which include full tuition fees and an annual maintenance stipend of £13,590 pro rata (in line with UK Research Council funding rates), and (iii) an RNCM Postgraduate Research Studentship that covers full tuition fees only. These studentships are offered for three years (full-time) or six years (part-time), subject to a satisfactory annual review of progress. They are awarded competitively to suitably qualified applicants who have accepted either a full-time or part-time place on the MPhil / PhD programme, beginning their studies in September 2012.
The deadlines for formal applications to the MPhil / PhD programme, if you are NOT applying for a studentship, are: 1 June to start in September, and, exceptionally, 1 November to start in January and 1 February to start in April.
For applicants wishing to be considered for studentships (AHRC, RNCM and RNCM fees-only award), the deadline for formal applications to the MPhil / PhD programme, with completed cases for support and referees’ reports, is 5pm on Friday 2 March 2012. To be considered for a research studentship you will need to submit a clearly articulated case for support, of no more than 750 words, in addition to the research proposal that accompanies your formal application. The case for support should state how the MPhil / PhD programme will contribute to your long-term career aims and provide evidence that you are capable of pursuing and successfully completing the programme by detailing your preparation for the programme, if appropriate, and relevant previous experience.
Successful candidates must have applied for a place on the MPhil/PhD programme, have been offered it, and have formally accepted it by 23 April 2012 to be eligible to take up the studentship.
Note that award holders must be citizens of the European Union or have been ordinarily resident in the UK for three years
Details of how to apply can be found on the RNCM’s website http://www.rncm.ac.uk/research-mainmenu-52/postgraduate-research-degrees-mainmenu-182.html. Alternatively, please contact research@rncm.ac.uk.
SOAS
The Department of Music at SOAS has a strong tradition of research, and encourages applicants for research degrees. Research topics typically focus on Africa, Asia or their diasporas, but can also explore other topics under the broad rubric of ethnomusicology. Staff have special interests in the music of China and Central Asia (Harris), Korea (Howard), Indonesia (Gray), India and Nepal (Widdess), the Islamic Middle East (Wright), the Jewish world (Wood), and Africa (Durán and Impey). Current students are tackling a wide range of topics and approaches including practice-based research. We have an excellent record in research: two major AHRC grants were awarded to Department Staff in 2009, and in the last RAE 80% of our submission was graded 3* (internationally excellent) or 4* (world-leading quality).
Our regional coverage is a distinctive aspect of our subject provision. We benefit from synergy with other disciplines in SOAS (languages, joint programmes etc), from our students’ access to the SOAS radio station and recording studio, and from our location in central London giving access to an unparalled range of performance teachers, concerts, the music industry, and media. Performance is central to our mission, significant both in terms of outreach and profile-raising activities (we run a popular concert series and summer
school) and also in terms of our active UG performance programme and our pioneering work on performance as research at MMus, PhD and post-doctoral levels.
http://www.soas.ac.uk/music/programmes/phd/
University of Surrey
The University of Surrey accepts students to read for a PhD in musicology, composition, and performance (and it is possible to combine aspects of these). Our ethos is one which encourages all researchers (both staff and students) to share both their work-in-progress and their methodologies with each other, and in which our responsibility to train researchers operates in tandem with facilitating students to develop as researchers. We work on all traditions of music in Europe and North America from the late nineteenth century to the present (although we have accepted research proposals outside this area). Within this, we adopt a range of ideological positions although always retaining the musical text as a key focus. Further details can be found at http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/msr/study/pgr/, from where you can link to details of individual staff specialisms.
The University of Surrey offers both an MMus in Music and an MRes in Musicology. The former programme features specialist pathways in performance, composition, conducting, popular music, musicology and creative practice. A compulsory research skills module (including a distinctive oral presentation component) is a feature of both programmes and is complemented by a wide range of optional modules that allows students to maintain or develop their existing interests facilitating, if desired, a combination of practical and theoretical study. The MRes is focused on a substantial dissertation taken alongside one optional module. This programme may be considered a fast track to doctoral study. Both programmes may be taken on a part-time basis over two years. For further information see: http://www.surrey.ac.uk/msr/study/pgt/
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Trinity Laban offers taught postgraduate programmes in Music as follows: an MMus degree (in Performance, Composition, or Creative Practice), validated by City University London; and an internally validated Postgraduate Advanced Diploma in Performance or Composition. The programmes, whilst heavily vocational in character, combine performance/composition with a range of elective elements, and aim to encourage the development of the characteristics of the 'informed performer/composer', able to direct their skills to the variety of challenges and opportunities of a career in music in the twenty-first century. [At the time of writing Trinity Laban's taught postgraduate music programmes are under review]. Informal enquiries about these programmes should be addressed to the Head of Postgraduate Programmes (Music), Jonathan Tilbrook [J.Tilbrook@trinitylaban.ac.uk]
Trinity Laban offers MPhil/PhD programmes in the following areas: Music or Dance Creative Practice; Music or Dance Pedagogy; Music or Dance Science. These courses received a new validation from City University London in 2008, and the current total postgraduate research population is seventeen students. Areas of supervisory specialism include: composition and choreography; dance theatre; musicology and dance studies; aesthetics and philosophy of music/dance; music psychology; dance science. Informal enquiries should be addressed to the Head of Research, Dr Jonathan Owen Clark [J.Clark@trinitylaban.ac.uk]
For more information please see www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/programmes
University of York
The Department of Music at the University of York offers a number of programmes of study for post-graduate students. Common to all these diverse opportunities, is an ethos that seeks to respond to the individual needs of those who come to work here while ensuring that these studies are accommodated within a wider academic context. Taught courses may share generic, core modules – supplemented by a range of option modules – but great emphasis is placed on seminar discussions and on one-to-one tutorials. This course design aims to offer as much flexibility as possible. There are four main courses available: MA in Music (offering specialisms in Performance, Composition, Contemporary Studies, Critical Studies, English Church Music, Conducting, Jazz Studies, Analysis), MA in Community Music, MA in Music Technology and the MA by Research (based around an independent research project).
Research degrees (MPhil and PhD) working with a specialist supervisor are also available and the York Music Department has one of the largest schools of research students in the UK. The main areas of research are as follows: in Musicology, Ethnomusicology, Analysis – by Thesis; in Composition (including electroacoustic composition) – by Portfolio; and in Performance – by Portfolio and Recital. There is a creative flexibility about submission requirements that aims to accommodate as wide a range of research interests, approach, presentation and submitted outcomes as possible. All postgraduate courses are available to both full- and part-time students.
For further details see: http://www.york.ac.uk/music/postgraduate/
