Composition - MMus / PgCert / PgDip

Program Overview

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Study as a postgraduate composer at one of the UK's most innovative composition departments. In recent years, Birmingham Conservatoire's

Composition department

has produced outstanding contemporary artists such as

Laura Mvula

,

Raffertie

and

Charlotte Bray

.

Unlike many composition courses at this level, the course actively celebrates the diversity of today's musical genres, and fosters artists who challenge, innovate and transform notions of artistic practice today. You'll spend most of your time writing music for professional and student ensembles, whether you choose to respond to our set briefs or work on your own projects.

You'll be encouraged to express yourself in multiple musical and artistic genres.

By studying composition within a thriving conservatoire setting, you'll have excellent opportunities to collaborate with performers and to have your works performed.

Alongside your focus on composition, our course provides opportunities for you to develop other skills relevant to a future career in the music profession.

This course is

open

to

International

students.

What's covered in this course?

Regular individual tuition in composition from internationally recognised composers.

A chance to develop a distinctive compositional voice within the context of a broadly based course, enhancing your employability.

The opportunity to participate in a wide variety of creative projects, including interdisciplinary collaborations.

Regular forums, seminars and masterclasses with distinguished visiting composers and performers.

Opportunities to have works performed/workshopped by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and other leading professional ensembles and musicians.

Frequent chances to have works performed by student performers, including by the Conservatoire’s own Contemporary Music Group (Thallein Ensemble) and other ensembles.

In PgDip and MMus, a core career development module designed to get you thinking about your future professional plans.

In PgDip and MMus, the flexibility to choose from a broad menu of Professional Development modules designed to help you work towards achieving your personal career aspirations.

In MMus, a core module designed to develop your skills as a researcher or informed practitioner.

In PgCert, the ability to focus wholly on the Principal Study area.

The possibility of transferring between PgCert, PgDip  and/or MMus (as appropriate) once you have begun your studies (but before completion of your original course).

If you want to work creatively, you study composition at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Louis Andriessen, Composer

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Studying with us during the Covid-19 pandemic

The University has put in place

measures in response to Covid-19

to allow us to safely deliver our courses. Should the impact of the pandemic continue in future years, any additional or alternative arrangements put in place by the University will be in accordance with the latest government public health advice, health and safety legislation, and the terms and conditions of the

student contract

.

Program Outline

PG Cert

PG Dip

MMus

PG Cert

In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete one of the following CORE modules (totalling 60 credits):

Principal Study 1: Composition 60 credits

This module enables you as a postgraduate composer to advance your training in your specialist area. For MMus students, it provides a prelude to the further advancement of your training in the Principal Study 2: Composition module.

Given that this module is focused entirely on your continued growth as a composer, it will focus on developing both your practical skills (such as approaches to expressing an idea/concept, instrumentation, voice leading, use of rhythm, melody and harmony, and presentation) and your critical/intellectual skills (such as creative thinking, aesthetic awareness and self-reflective working).

PG Dip

In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete the following CORE module (totalling 60 credits):

Principal Study 1: Composition 60 credits

This module enables you as a postgraduate composer to advance your training in your specialist area. For MMus students, it provides a prelude to the further advancement of your training in the Principal Study 2: Composition module.

Given that this module is focused entirely on your continued growth as a composer, it will focus on developing both your practical skills (such as approaches to expressing an idea/concept, instrumentation, voice leading, use of rhythm, melody and harmony, and presentation) and your critical/intellectual skills (such as creative thinking, aesthetic awareness and self-reflective working).

In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete all the following CORE modules (totalling 20 credits):

Career Development 20 credits

Members of the music profession require not only high-level specialist skills but also the ability to target those skills strategically to different circumstances. This module focuses on a range of different aspects of a musician’s professional development that directly relate to the music industry and their preparation for it: from self-promotion and self-management, to funding and wellbeing. It is thus central to a programme which aims to prepare you for a career as a musician in the 21st century.

It requires you, near the beginning of your postgraduate studies, to reflect ambitiously yet realistically on your professional aspirations, and to formulate a plan that helps you stand the best chance of achieving your goals. Weekly workshops, delivered by internal staff and external professionals, will focus on the practicalities of a career in music, providing you with a better insight into the industry you will be entering, as well as encouraging you to be self-reflective about your own personal and professional development needs.

In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete at least 40 credits from the following indicative list of OPTIONAL modules.

Optional modules 40 credits

Each module listed is worth 20 credits.

Conservatoire based

Concepts in Musicology

Contemporary Music Concepts and Practice

Creative Interactive Music Technology Performance

Critical Editing Techniques

Documentation

Experimental Performance in Context(s)

Historical Instrument Performance

Historical Performance Practice

Independent Scholarship in Music

Music and Ideas

Music Technology Contexts

Orchestration

Performing and Producing in the Studio

Professional Music Criticism

Self-Promotion Project

Teaching Matters: Principles and Practice

Work Placement

Writing Music for Media

Conference Paper

Preparation for Research

Music, Community and Wellbeing (BMus module)

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School of Art based

Art and Ecologies

Contemporary Philosophy and Aesthetics

Discourses in Art and Design

Models and Methods of Curatorial Practice

Queer Strategies in Practice

Small Arts Business Set Up

Social Practice in the Visual Arts

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School of Media based

Live Events and Festival Management

Social Media as Culture and Practice

Core modules are guaranteed to run. Optional modules will vary from year to year and the published list is indicative only.

MMus

In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete THREE CORE modules (totalling 140 credits):

Career Development 20 credits

Members of the music profession require not only high-level specialist skills but also the ability to target those skills strategically to different circumstances. This module focuses on a range of different aspects of a musician’s professional development that directly relate to the music industry and their preparation for it: from self-promotion and self-management, to funding and wellbeing. It is thus central to a programme which aims to prepare you for a career as a musician in the 21st century.

It requires you, near the beginning of your postgraduate studies, to reflect ambitiously yet realistically on your professional aspirations, and to formulate a plan that helps you stand the best chance of achieving your goals. Weekly workshops, delivered by internal staff and external professionals, will focus on the practicalities of a career in music, providing you with a better insight into the industry you will be entering, as well as encouraging you to be self-reflective about your own personal and professional development needs.

Principal Study 1: Composition 60 credits

This module enables you as a postgraduate composer to advance your training in your specialist area. For MMus students, it provides a prelude to the further advancement of your training in the Principal Study 2: Composition module.

Given that this module is focused entirely on your continued growth as a composer, it will focus on developing both your practical skills (such as approaches to expressing an idea/concept, instrumentation, voice leading, use of rhythm, melody and harmony, and presentation) and your critical/intellectual skills (such as creative thinking, aesthetic awareness and self-reflective working).

Principal Study 2: Composition 60 credits

This module enables you as a postgraduate composer to continue to advance your training in your specialist area, and thus provides professionally-relevant experience. It builds on the technical and creative skills acquired in the Principal Study 1 Composition module, encouraging greater compositional ambition, the development of an individual voice and personal aesthetic, and a consistently professional approach to presentation.

In addition to continuing to develop the practical and critical skills fostered in Principal Study 1 Composition, it will seek to enhance your ability to deal with more ambitious ideas/concepts (including the creation of large structures), and to be reflective, especially in how you write about and discuss your own work.

In order to complete this course, a student must successfully complete at least 100 credits from the following indicative list of OPTIONAL modules:

THREE Professional Development modules (20 credits each), and

ONE MMus optional module (40 credits)

Optional modules 100 credits

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Professional Development modules (20 credits each)

Conservatoire based

Concepts in Musicology

Contemporary Music Concepts and Practice

Creative Interactive Music Technology Performance

Critical Editing Techniques

Documentation

Experimental Performance in Context(s)

Historical Instrument Performance

Historical Performance Practice

Independent Scholarship in Music

Music and Ideas

Music Technology Contexts

Orchestration

Performing and Producing in the Studio

Professional Music Criticism

Self-Promotion Project

Teaching Matters: Principles and Practice

Work Placement

Writing Music for Media

Conference Paper

Preparation for Research

Music, Community and Wellbeing (BMus module)

School of Art based

Art and Ecologies

Contemporary Philosophy and Aesthetics

Discourses in Art and Design

Models and Methods of Curatorial Practice

Queer Strategies in Practice

Small Arts Business Set Up

Social Practice in the Visual Arts

School of Media based

Live Events and Festival Management

Social Media as Culture and Practice

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MMus optional modules (40 credits each)

Research Project

Critical Edition

Lecture-Recital

The Reflective Practioner

There are two pathways through this module: 1. Professional Placement, and 2. Creative Interdisciplinary Artist.

Core modules are guaranteed to run. Optional modules will vary from year to year and the published list is indicative only.

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Course structure

Whichever course you choose, work in the

Principal Study

area lies at its heart. For Composers, the Principal Study modules each culminate in a portfolio of compositions. Preparation of this work is supported by individual specialist tuition, as well as by departmental activities throughout the course.

If you are a MMus or PgDip student you will take a

Career Development

module, which will require you, near the beginning of your course, to reflect ambitiously yet realistically on your professional aspirations, and to formulate a plan that helps you stand the best chance of achieving your goals. You will also choose, in addition, some

Professional Development Options

from a varied list. The following gives an indication the kind of optional modules which may be offered in a given year, including some offered by Birmingham City University’s Schools of Art and Media (

note, not all will run every year

).

MMus students will additionally choose a 40-credit option from one of two categories: ‘The Emerging Researcher’ or ‘The Reflective Practitioner’.

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Part-time options

There is some room for negotiation in how the course unfolds for a part-time MMus student over three years, or in the case of part-time PgDip students, over two years.