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.
Academy Song Circle
Founded in 2004, the Academy Song Circle offers students the opportunity to hone their skills in the art of recital singing.
Students receive specialist coaching and performance opportunities within the Academy and at external venues around the UK.
Auditions are held annually, and successful students are invited to take part in a number of song recitals during the academic year. Singers and pianists are paired together by the Song Circle Artistic Team, and student duos are then encouraged to choose their own repertoire for Song Circle recitals, in conjunction with their professors and the Song Circle Artistic Team, fostering a spirit of artistic and intellectual curiosity and collaboration.
The Academy Song Circle gives annual recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Leeds Lieder Festival and Austrian Cultural Forum, and in recent years has also appeared at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Kings Place, the Queen’s Gallery, and the National Gallery. Events at the Academy include an annual Valentine’s Day recital and a yearly Schubertiade, held on the anniversary of Schubert’s birth, acknowledging his place as the ‘prince of song’.
Academy Song Circle has made three CD recordings: ‘Songs of Spring’, ‘Songs of Seduction’, and ‘Goethe’s Girls and Mörike’s Men’.
Academy Voices
In 2017, the Academy Voices was established to provide another performance platform for singers and accompanists, offering valuable recital opportunities to a larger pool of students. Each year, Academy Voices presents an eight-recital series at the Italian Cultural Institute in London, with each concert focussing on a specific country and its song and operatic repertoire. In each series, concerts are devoted to German and Austrian Lieder, French mélodie, Italian opera, and English song. Previous series have also included recitals of Spanish song and zarzuela, Russian romances, and Scandinavian song repertoire.
Students benefit from specialist coaching for Academy Voices recitals, and are encouraged to suggest repertoire of their own choice for each concert, in conjunction with their professors and the Academy Voices Artistic Team, which includes Kate Paterson (Head of Vocal Studies), Richard Stokes, James Bailieu, Joseph Middleton and Benjamin Mead.
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 Vocal Studies is integrated into our postgraduate audition framework, allowing candidates to demonstrate their artistic maturity and advanced vocal foundation through a practical performance selection.
Your Audition Repertoire
For your postgraduate audition, you must prepare a specific combination of items that highlights your technical mastery, linguistic capabilities, and stylistic breadth across different genres of vocal literature.
Repertoire Guidelines:
- Required Items: Your audition repertoire must consist of exactly four items:
- One operatic aria
- One oratorio aria
- Two art songs
- Language Requirement: At least one of your four items must be sung in English or in an English translation.
What to Expect on Audition Day
1. Delivery Options & Practical Assessment
- In-Person (London): You will perform live at the Academy for the specialist vocal faculty panel. You will be allowed to choose your first item to sing, and the panel will then select any further items or extracts they wish to hear from your remaining repertoire list. Live London auditions do not require you to submit pre-screening recordings.
- Video Auditions: If you are auditioning remotely (including candidates applying from international audition centres like New York), you must upload your performance recordings to the Acceptd portal. Your recordings do not have to be captured in a single continuous 'take', but all four items must be from the same recording session.
2. Postgraduate Interview
You may be asked to participate in a subsequent interview with one of the postgraduate programme tutors, which can take place either online or in person. This conversation is designed to explore your background, vocal milestones, artistic philosophy, and your immediate study plans at the Academy.
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, performance experience, roles prepared, and concert history.
- 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. If you are also interested in the Master of Music (MMus) track, please prioritize applying for the MMus course option in your application. All Master of Music candidates are automatically considered for the Master of Arts, and only one audition is required to be assessed for both pathways.
For more information see auditions.