Overview
The Master of Arts (MA) in Performance is a two-year postgraduate course for students who want to focus on performance and build on their professional skills.
The MA is designed to allow maximum flexibility for you to concentrate upon the range of activities offered, to develop your own performance initiatives and to form a bridge to a performance career. This two year programme is the usual length for the MA though some candidates may be allowed to take the MA in one year; the length of programme can be discussed at your audition and adjusted later, you are not tied to the programme length you select in your application.
Core Modules
- Performance classes
- Masterclasses
- Individual lessons for Principal Study
- Ensemble and Directed Ensemble coaching
- Lectures
- Seminars
- Academic supervisions
Elective Modules
The modules listed below will vary slightly each year in response to student needs and the evolving musical world.
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.
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.
Composition
The Composition elective is available for postgraduate performance students who have prior experience of instrumental and/or vocal composition at degree level (or equivalent).
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.
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.
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.
Performing French Music
This elective is offered to instrumentalists, singers and conducting students, covering song, solo and chamber repertoire and orchestral works (for everyone’s mutual interest).
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.
Entry Requirements
Academic Qualifications
You will usually hold a Bachelor of Music (BMus) degree, a university Bachelor's degree containing music as a core component, or an international equivalent qualification.
Written Requirements
Unlike the Master of Music (MMus) track, the Master of Arts (MA) in Performance does not require you to submit an academic project proposal or a written portfolio. Your selection is focused primarily on your musicality and practical performance.
See Entry Requirements for more information.
Auditions
We want you to view your audition as a recital rather than a rigid test. Our panel is looking for your unique musical personality, your technical command, and your potential for growth. Try to relax, focus on your storytelling through the instrument, and let us hear who you are as a musician.
The Master of Arts (MA) in Performance selection process for Strings is integrated into our postgraduate audition framework, allowing candidates to demonstrate their artistic maturity and advanced technical foundation through a practical performance selection.
Your Audition Repertoire
For your postgraduate audition, the repertoire requirements are specific to your chosen string instrument. You must prepare a balanced performance portfolio that highlights your technical command and interpretive breadth.
Repertoire Guidelines:
- Violin, Viola, and Cello Candidates: You must prepare:
- The first movement of a major post-1800 concerto.
- A contrasting piece of your own choice.
- Double Bass Candidates: You must prepare:
- One solo piece of your own choice.
- Two orchestral excerpts of your own choice.
What to Expect on Audition Day
1. Delivery Options & Practical Assessment
- In-Person (London): You will perform your prepared selection live for the specialist string faculty panel. London in-person auditions for your Principal Study do not require you to submit pre-screening or video recordings. As live audition time is strictly limited, the panel may choose to hear selected sections or movements of your pieces rather than the full items.
- Video Auditions: If you are auditioning remotely (or applying from an international centre such as Australia, China, or New York), you must upload your performance recordings to the Acceptd portal. Individual items (pieces or movements) can be recorded separately if making a single-take recording is affected by circumstances beyond your control, such as the availability of an accompanist. All accompanied works must include the appropriate accompaniment, which can be a 'minus one' backing track. When recording, ensure your music stand does not block the camera's view of your playing.
2. Postgraduate Interview
All Master of Arts candidates participate in a structured conversation with a postgraduate programme tutor, which may take place on your audition day or as a subsequent online interview. This conversation is designed to explore your musical background, study plans, artistic philosophies, and professional goals.
In addition to your practical repertoire, your digital application profile must contain:
- Curriculum Vitae (CV): A current copy of your CV detailing your education, masterclasses, orchestral or chamber experience, and solo performances.
- Spoken English Introduction: A short recorded verbal introduction introducing yourself and your professional goals to the faculty panel.
Please note: The Master of Arts is a standard postgraduate pathway focused heavily on advanced performance. There are no academic written requirements for the MA pathway. Your ultimate course placement remains flexible; you are not tied to the course choice in your application, and the programme pathway and length can be discussed and adjusted with the panel during your assessment. If you are also interested in the Master of Music (MMus) track, please apply for the MMus option, as all MMus candidates are automatically considered for the MA track through a single audition.
For more information see auditions.