Overview
The Master of Music in Composition follows the same programme as the MA but with the addition of a Master’s project. Most composition students select this two-year MMus option in order to take advantage of the extra classes and project support. This is also the usual option for those considering doctoral study in the longer term. In exceptional circumstances, students can take this course in one year. The programme path and length can be discussed at the entrance interview and adjusted as appropriate, you are not tied to the option you choose when you submit your application in UCAS Conservatoires.
All postgraduate MMus composers engage in academic project-work and go on to prepare a Masters Project. This can take the form of a concert based around your own research, compositions or performance interests, or a substantial written document - or even a combination of both.
Some composers choose to take the one-year Master of Arts (MA). This programme includes the same project work, but does not have the final Masters Project or academic project-work.
The programme path and length can be discussed at the entrance interview and adjusted as appropriate, you are not tied to the option you choose when you submit your application in UCAS Conservatoires.
Core Modules
The programme uses a range of teaching methods to ensure that students’ learning processes are stimulating, challenging, diverse and complementary. The principal modes of teaching are summarised below (composers and performers will have different needs):
Performance classes
These classes provide a bridge between one-to-one tuition, masterclasses, and concert performances. They allow students to present work-in-progress and receive informal feedback from departmental staff and from their peers.
Masterclasses
Masterclasses provide students with opportunities to present work to students and members of the public). Like performance classes, masterclasses complement one-to-one tuition by widening the range of interpretative judgment to which the students are subject. They are designed to expose students to the very highest international professional standards and provide additional high-profile performance opportunities.
Composition Portfolio
Postgraduate composers are assessed on a portfolio of work submitted at the end of the year. Academic supervisions provide the opportunity for academic staff to develop, monitor, and critique work in the Portfolio, and to provide specialist input where applicable.
Ensemble and Directed Ensemble coaching
Ensemble and Directed Ensemble coaching is the means by which small or large groups of performers receive one-to-one tuition in preparation for concert performances.
Lectures
Lectures provide a forum for the dissemination of ideas, information and skills to the end of establishing a sound and sustainable knowledge base.
Seminars
Seminars are designed to encourage the sharing of ideas and the development of structured arguments and debating skills.
Elective Modules
The modules listed below will vary slightly each year in response to student needs and the evolving musical world.
Contemporary Music Workshop
These classes bring together composers and performers in a collaborative environment in which musical ideas can be exchanged and developed, and the processes of collaboration explored. The classes include practical workshops where students develop their ideas, and seminars in which case studies in collaborative practice are examined. Each student participates in collaborative projects with at least one other student, developing musical materials that can take any form. Students participate in formal group presentations that include details of the collaborative processes and performances of the completed musical materials.
Analysis and Aesthetics
This elective will explore both technical aspects of music analysis and wider aesthetic and musicological topics, with a particular focus on bringing these areas together.
Artist Development
Our Artist Development provision is here to prepare you practically, creatively and strategically for a sustainable career in the music profession. We want you to leave here as fully-rounded, creative and adaptable musicians, with the tools and know-how to gain employment in unpredictable times. Practical sessions and intensive electives through the year include working with online content, personal recording techniques, preparing professional documents, auditioning well, how to get funding, and self-employed finances. Artist Development forms a part of the broader range of your work and activities, which we assess over the course of your studies via a portfolio. For more information please visit our Artist Development pages on the website.
Attentive Listening
An elective designed to hone listening skills across a wide variety of styles and genres. For 90 minutes each week an eclectic selection of music is studied, with class discussions focussing upon analytical issues or matters of interpretation, and across history are also studied.
Concert Programmes and Programming
This elective explores a mix of historical and current factors that underpin programming decisions across a range of music-making experiences.
Concert Workshop
At the heart of this elective has always been the question ‘how do we communicate most effectively in concert scenarios?’ – eclipsing the more fundamental issue of ‘what is a concert?’
Creative Collaboration
A three-day intensive course in collaboration with Glyndebourne, led by Artistic Director Stephen Langridge, for singers, instrumentalists and composers. Through a series of workshops, the participants will explore methods of creating music theatre, and develop their abilities and skills as collaborative artists.
Creating your own performance projects
The focus of these workshops will be how to turn an idea into a small-scale creative project, from inception to promotion and performance.
Creative Programming and Research
This course critically examines different aspects of concert practice, exploring strategies for responding to sources (including recordings) and wider issues around programming, including audiences, venues and concert functions.
Enhanced Performance Techniques
Open to PG students of all disciplines, this elective enables performers to deliver with greater freedom and confidence, through enhanced preparation techniques.
Historical Performance
This Elective will give you the opportunity to explore historically informed performance on period instruments.
The Interpreter’s Workshop
Do you think of yourself as an ‘interpreter’ or a ‘creator’? (Dare we think of ourselves as ‘creators’?) When you practise a work do you consider what other performers have done as much as you try to discover the ‘composer’s intentions’? Close listening to recordings (historical and contemporary) can reveal a surprising range of possibilities for the performer that are not captured – or even suggested – in musical scores. In this class we establish a framework for asking useful questions about these possibilities and gaining technical/expressive resources in the process.
Open Academy
Open Academy is the Academy’s Learning, Participation and Community initiative, working with around 6,000 people beyond our enrolled students and staff each year. As the importance of participatory and community music programmes in areas including education, health and wellbeing continues to grow both in the UK and internationally, it is crucial that our students have the opportunity to obtain skills and experience in this exciting and expanding area of work. Open Academy offers lectures, seminars and workshops alongside hands-on practical experience in the field.
Performing Experimental Music
This elective provides an introduction to performing music in C20th and 21st experimental music traditions.
The Pianist’s Heritage
These sessions provide a unique opportunity for reflection and debate around key repertoire areas of the pianist, and around the most burning performance-practice questions of our time – crucially how these relate to expectations in the current music professions.
Principles of Chamber Music
The Chamber Music lectures are designed to enhance all aspects of practical chamber music.
Thinking about recording / The self-directed recording artist
Led by two critically acclaimed self-producing recording artists, five sessions exploring the challenges and opportunities for today’s musician.
Transcription and Arrangement
Transcription and Arrangement is an elective open to all postgraduate performance students. This elective explores the art of arranging and transcribing music for a variety of ensembles and contexts. It will be of particular use for students wishing to arrange existing music for their own chamber ensembles, such a string quartets or wind and brass ensembles.
Classes and Activities
In addition to individual lessons, composers participate in the following activities:
Orchestration and Analysis
Developing skills in producing scores and performance parts to build confidence in adapting compositional processes to the
demands of different performance contexts.
Electronic Music and Creative Technology
The Academy has a wide range of Creative Technology facilities. These allow the composition, recording, editing and mixing of a wide range of musical styles to be done using professional-quality hardware and software. We have dedicated staff to teach you how to use it.
Composer Workshops
You will be given regular occasions to rehearse and record your work with talented Academy musicians in both studio and concert hall settings. There are many opportunities for student compositions to be played by orchestral and chamber ensembles both inside and outside the Academy.
Composition Concerts
Composer Platform concerts are given at the end of each term, both within the Academy and in external venues in London.
Commissions
Throughout the year, we offer a number of commissions to our composers to write for a wide variety of events with professional performers both within and outside the Academy. Recently, three of our composers wrote commissions for the annual Spitalfields Festival.
Seminar Series
This series underpins all composition studies and features guest composers such as Brian Eno, Simon Holt, Judith Weir, Beat Furrer, Martijn Padding, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, and Betsy Jolas.
Entry Requirements
Academic Qualifications
You will usually hold a Bachelor's degree at lower second-class honours (2:2) or higher, or an international qualification of an equivalent standard. This degree is normally, but not necessarily, in music.
Written Requirements
Unlike the Master of Arts (MA) track, the Master of Music (MMus) requires you to submit an academic project proposal. This must be uploaded to your Acceptd application profile to demonstrate your readiness for academic research alongside performance.
See Entry Requirements for more information.
Auditions & Portfolio Assessment
We want you to view your application process as a professional presentation of your creative voice rather than a rigid test. Our panel is looking for your unique musical identity, your technical command of musical construction, your inventive formatting, and your potential for growth. Try to relax, focus on sharing your individual sonic storytelling, and let us hear who you are as a creator.
The Master of Music (MMus) selection process for Composition and Contemporary Music is integrated into our postgraduate assessment framework. This allows candidates to demonstrate their artistic maturity, structural precision, orchestration control, and capacity for postgraduate research through a multi-stage creative portfolio evaluation and an academic discussion.
Your Composition Portfolio
Unlike performance applicants who undergo live initial rounds, composition candidates are initially assessed entirely via a digital creative portfolio. You must upload your complete portfolio materials to the Acceptd portal.
Portfolio Guidelines:
- Score Requirements: You must submit clean **PDF scores of at least four pieces** representing a variety of musical forces (for example, solo works, chamber music, or orchestral layouts).
- Recent Examples: The selections should represent what you consider to be your finest, most recent creative output. If you have not yet written four pieces, the panel will accept fewer examples for evaluation.
- Audio-Visual Elements: Where possible, you should upload a corresponding audio or video recording to accompany each PDF score. (Please note that actual files must be uploaded directly; the panel does not accept external links to YouTube, Dropbox, or other external hosting sites).
- Programme Notes: You may optionally include a short descriptive programme note for the pieces inside your portfolio, though this is not compulsory.
- Style Boundaries: There are **no style constraints** or aesthetic restrictions imposed on your work. The department panel evaluates all submissions purely on your creative individuality and technical accomplishment.
What to Expect: Assessment & Recalls
Round One: Portfolio Review
The Composition department entry panel reviews all digital portfolios under a strict deadline framework. This serves as the direct equivalent of an instrumentalist's practical first-round audition. Candidates will be notified in early November if they have been shortlisted to advance to the next stage.
Round Two: Interview & Tasks
If you are selected for a Round Two recall interview, the process incorporates practical and conversational elements:
- The Composition Exercise: Seven days before your scheduled interview date, you will receive a short composition exercise via email. You must complete and return this task within the designated timeframe.
- The Panel Discussion: During the interview, you will discuss your submitted portfolio pieces, your completed composition exercise, your creative inspirations, and your artistic goals with members of the composition faculty.
Postgraduate Academic & Application Profile
Because the Master of Music (MMus) is a research-led track that includes compulsory written components, critical portfolios, or a dissertation alongside your principal composition studies, your application profile must satisfy both practical and academic benchmarks.
Your digital application profile on the Acceptd portal must contain:
- Curriculum Vitae (CV): A current copy of your CV detailing your formal musical background, composition teachers, masterclass opportunities, commissions, or performances.
- Spoken English Introduction: A short recorded video verbal introduction introducing yourself, your background, your musical ambitions, and your specific reasons for wanting to study composition at the Academy.
- Specialist Proposal / Written Material: MMus candidates must submit a formal specialist research proposal or examples of written work to demonstrate that they possess the critical writing and analytical skills required to undertake postgraduate academic research.
Please note: Your ultimate course placement remains flexible. Because the practical portfolio review is identical for both pathways, all MMus candidates are automatically considered for the Master of Arts (MA) track. If the panel feels your composition standard is outstanding but your academic profile is better suited to a purely practical pathway, you may be offered an MA place instead. The programme pathway and choices can be discussed and adjusted with the panel during your assessment.
For more information see auditions.