Overview
Our four-year Bachelor of Music (BMus) undergraduate degree programme attracts talented young musicians from across the world to study with today’s finest musicians and teachers.
The BMus combines focused study in performance with supporting academic studies. Every aspect is designed to help you towards realising your full musical potential, and to prepare you for your career in music.
You will have at least one hour of one-to-one tuition per week in your Principal Study and numerous performance opportunities. We offer a wide range of activities, events, training sessions and modules for you to hone your skill in such things as studio recording and editing techniques, self-promotion and marketing, writing CVs, making funding applications, understanding the music business and working in arts management.
At the end of your third and fourth years, you submit a portfolio of materials to help prepare you for professional life after the Academy.
BMus Entry Requirements
- Performance/Composition: High standard of performing potential or composition, strong musicianship, and good aural skills.
- Music Exams: Formal exams are not required, but successful performers are typically at a Grade 8 Distinction level or higher.
- Music Theory: Grade 6 level knowledge is recommended before starting if you aren't taking school music exams.
- Keyboard Skills: No formal minimum required (unless it's your Principal Study), though Grade 5 piano is desirable to support general musicianship.
See Entry Requirements for full academic and international criteria.
Modules
Undergraduate students take weekly academic classes in addition to their principal study. The classes are designed to complement and add to every student’s creative development as performers.
Core Modules - Years 1 and 2
- Analytical Skills 1
- Analytical Skills 2
- Performing In Context 1
- Performing In Context 2
- Aural Skills 1
- Aural Skills 2
- Score Reading
- Artist Development
Elective Modules - Years 3 and 4
- Analysis of Post-Tonal Music
- Approaching the Great Luthiers
- Aural Skills, Further
- Baroque Performance on Historical Instruments
- Baroque Performance on Historical Instruments, Advanced
- Compositional Techniques of the Germanic Traditions c.1780-c.1880
- Conducting, Advanced
- Conducting, Intermediate
- Contemporary Music Workshop
- Crossing Cultural Frontiers
- Free Composition for Performers
- Free Composition for Performers, Advanced
- Fugue
- Listening to Mozart, Thinking about Mozart, Playing Mozart
- Maestro: a History of Conducting through Film, Recordings and Marked Scores
- Messiaen in Context
- Methods in the Analysis of Tonal Music, Advanced
- Mozart’s Operas
- Musical Aesthetics and Criticism
- Open Academy
- Open Academy. Advanced
- Performing Baroque Music (with a focus on Handel)
- Performing Experimental Music
- Repertoire Studies
- Research Project
- Silent Film Improvisation
- Song Accompaniment
- Studio Performance
- Worldwide Repertoires
Classes and Activities
Masterclasses and Performance Classes
Public masterclasses are a regular feature and a highlight of the calendar for our students. You will have the opportunity to work on specific repertoire with leading performers in the organ world. By contrast, Performance Classes are led by Academy professors offering you an opportunity to discuss and experiment with your interpretive ideas in an informal environment.
Improvisation
These classes held in groups with occasional individual coaching for the more advanced students. They are designed to introduce you to improvisation in both formal and free styles, and to enable you to develop an ability to express yourself through improvisation both liturgically and in concert
Performance Practice
An important aspect in the study of the organ and its wide repertoire, these classes provide an in-depth approach to national styles of organ performance are complemented by study trips to mainland Europe and overseas
Specialist Keyboard Skills for Organists
These classes are grouped based on experience and aural abilities and include preparation for RCO (Royal College of Organists) diplomas, score-reading and advanced aural training
Technique Class
This class helps you to overcome technical challenges in order to play as musically as possible and approach a variety of repertoire.
Organology
This series of lectures and site visits teaches you about the construction, design and mechanics of organs. We believe knowing how the organ is constructed and works is fundamental to knowing how to play it.
Choral Conducting: Organ and Church Music
Students are encouraged to attend teaching in the Choral Conducting department (as an elective), and to work with relevant Organ professors in other fundamental church musician skills.
Chamber Music
Performing with other musicians is a vital part of an organist’s development and is taken very seriously at the Academy. With the installation of the new organ in the Duke’s Hall, we can play repertoire requiring large instrumental forces.
Study Trips
Performance practice projects are supervised by specialists and frequently take the form of overseas visits where repertoire study is matched to a specific organ-building tradition. Recent trips have been to Hamburg’s St Catharinen and St Jacobi Churches, to Lübeck, Paris, Rouen, Toulouse, Southern Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain and to the historic organs of the Siebenbürgen in Transylvania.
Harmonium
Unique to the Academy, we offer a series of intensive classes designed to introduce the harmonium to our students.
Auditions
An audition at the Academy is treated like a professional recital rather than a strict exam. The panel is eager to hear your unique artistic vision, stylistic understanding, and technical capability. Remember to relax, stay focused, and show us your genuine passion for the instrument.
Your Audition Repertoire
Undergraduate applicants (applying for BMus, Gap Year, or Organ Foundation pathways) must prepare a specific combination of set repertoire and free-choice pieces.
- Set Piece: J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 545.
- Free-Choice Repertoire: A selection of piece(s) of your own choice. The total duration of your free-choice selection must not exceed 15 minutes.
What to Expect on Audition Day
1. Rehearsal & Audition Timings (Live in London)
Live undergraduate auditions last 30 minutes. Because time is limited, please do not be discouraged if the panel interrupts you before you finish a piece—this is standard practice to ensure they hear a balanced overview of your playing.
- Console Rehearsal Time: You will be assigned a dedicated 45-minute rehearsal block at the console earlier on your audition date to set your registrations and settle into the instrument.
2. Academic Interview & Aural Skills Assessment
All undergraduate applicants participate in an interview with a member of our academic staff. This is a conversational session to discuss your future study plans, musical tastes, and aspirations.
During the interview, you will discuss a short extract of music and complete an Aural Skills Assessment. This features a sight-singing test alongside practical exercises to test your core musicianship:
- Singing the middle notes of a played chord.
- Identification of intervals.
- Sight-reading of rhythms.
- Simultaneous polyrhythms: Sight-reading two different rhythms at the same time (singing one rhythm while clapping the other simultaneously).
Please note: Specimen tests are not available in advance.
For more information see auditions.