Music by Research

Entry requirements

Applicants should normally hold (or expect to gain) an upper second class honours degree. While most students come with a first degree in Music or Music Technology, we do consider applicants with a good honours degree in related subjects in the arts, humanities, and sciences if they can demonstrate musical expertise and experience.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The MA by Research develops skills within the broad fields of music, including contemporary composition and sound practices (notated and digital music, sound arts, and interdisciplinary practices), performance (classical, jazz, improvisation, popular, and other musical traditions), and scholarship (historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music analysis, and sound studies). This unique course embraces music and sound in all its plurality and cuts across key topics and issues in order to bridge increasingly overlapping sub-disciplines.

Engagement with professional practice lies at the core of the course taught by world-leading artists and scholars who are active creators and researchers. You will collaborate with international visitors in workshops and masterclasses and have the opportunity to present your work and research to the public in our annual City Summer Sounds Festival and Postgraduate Research Conference. The course complements our research centre SPARC (Sound Practice And Research @ City), which hosts an annual interdisciplinary symposium and our groundbreaking record label multi.modal distributed by NMC Recordings.

We have an outstanding reputation for dynamic, inspiring and rigorous postgraduate education and we offer exceptional support to our students who benefit from our location in the heart of London, one of the world’s great cultural hubs.