The programme will allow you to have significant directed podium time with University ensembles as well as take singing lessons at Birmingham Conservatoire, sing in Birmingham University Singers, sing in the CBSO Chorus and act as assistant conductor to at least one University choir. Additional podium time will be available at the discretion of the Director of Choral Activities.
You will study four core modules:
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Choral Conducting
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Musicology Research Seminar
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Information Skills and Resources in Music
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Current Issues in Musical Studies
You will also choose one optional module and complete a final recital, which will take the form of a substantial solo recital or a substantial concert of choral repertoire. The recital offers you the opportunity to unite practical and theoretical musicianship, and to demonstrate the ability to plan and independently prepare (with some supervision) a performance at an advanced level.
You will benefit from Conducting Masterclasses in association with Birmingham Conservatoire as well as following follow the work of the CBSO Youth Choruses (3 choirs). You also get the opportunity to observe the choral ensembles in Birmingham (notably Ex Cathedra, Black Voices, Birmingham Opera Company and the local cathedrals) and be examined by a final recital as conductor of either BUS or the University Choir.
You will also have the chance to audition for the conductorship of all UMS ensembles.
The city of Birmingham has been a significant national and international centre of choral excellence for over two hundred years and is the birthplace of works as important as Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Dvorak’s Requiem and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. Vaughan Williams, Britten and Tippett often worked here. More recently, Birmingham has become a hotspot of compositional invention and a world-leader in community and education work.
Choral music is particularly active today and the University, by appointing Simon Halsey (Chorus Director, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Chief Conductor, Berlin Radio Choir) to the new post of Director of Choral Activities, seeks to take its place at the centre of the city’s vibrant and kaleidoscopic choral culture.
You will study four core modules:
Choral Conducting
The module introduces you to the techniques and methods of choral conducting, working with consorts, chamber groups and large symphonic choirs, including singing skills and vocal warm up techniques.
Musicology Research Seminar
Invited speakers from other universities will give eight musicology research seminars, each of one hour in length, followed by discussion. The seminars will provide case studies in a range of methods, techniques and philosophies in contemporary musicology. Staff of the Music Department will lead four follow-up sessions of up to one hour in length, examining the broader issues that lie behind the approaches taken in the seminars.
Information Skills and Resources in Music
This module helps you to identify and access appropriate bibliographical resources, archives, and other sources of relevant information; describe in detail the process of bibliographical research and justify it; and execute a critical survey of the existing literature on a research topic.
Introduction to Music Research
This module introduces you to contemporary issues, methods, techniques and debates in music, in such areas as source studies (manuscript, printed, electronic), historical performance practice, reception history, and genre studies.
You will also choose one optional module from the following:
Advanced Music Analysis
The module will benefit Masters students in Music who lack a traditional background in technical analysis. You will attend the Level I undergraduate module ‘Analysis’ and tutorials given by the module leader. Topics include analysis of fugue, sonata form, nineteenth-century harmony, rhythm and metre, post-tonal pitch organisation and musical narrative.
Techniques of Music Editing
This module will show you the mechanics and transcription of early notation in the context of brief editing projects, and to apply knowledge gained in Introduction to Music Research and elective modules in understanding source traditions. You will develop skills in transcription, in the interpretation of various notations, and in the critical evaluation of different editions.
Historical Musicology
This module introduces you to contemporary issues, methods, techniques and debates in historical musicology, in the areas of source studies (manuscript, printed, electronic), historical performance practice, reception history, and genre studies.
British Music Studies
This module takes the broadest perspective on modern British art music, offering case studies in the work of the ‘great composers’ of the tonal idiom such as Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten, evaluation of the Anglican choral tradition and the British symphonic tradition, examination of the problematic status of modernism in British music before 1960, and criticism of modernist and postmodernist composition since World War II. Approaches are critical, analytical and sociological, with some reception history as well. The repertory under study is mainly choral, orchestral and chamber music.