Please see Filling In Your Application For UK Conservatoires via UCAS for further assistance with this process.
These details are for students applying to start their studies at the Academy in September 2024.
Master of Arts (Choral Conducting) on UCAS
Master of Music (Choral Conducting) on UCAS
First Round assessments will be made by video submission.
You will hear by the end of January if you have been called for the Second Round, which will take place at the Academy. This assessment will be completed within one day.
You are welcome to contact the Admissions Team admissions@ram.ac.uk or the department administrator choral.conducting@ram.ac.uk if you have any queries.
These requirements are for students auditioning to start their studies at the Academy in September 2024. Requirements may vary in future years.
Choral Conducting candidates should submit their completed UCAS Conservatoires application, by midday UK time on 8 January, and also upload into Acceptd:
Your video performance recordings must be filmed from the singers’ view of the conductor and should show the full height of the conductor. You may conduct a piano arrangement if you are unable to fix a group of singers.
You may also optionally upload a further 10 minutes maximum of video of rehearsal and/or performance of you conducting a choir, of your own choice of piece(s), if you have filmed material available.
The quality of the recording does not need to be perfect, but the works or rehearsal shown should have no cuts or other editing.
Please upload the files to Acceptd, all candidates need to select “Postgraduate Applications” and then “Conducting, Choral” as the Program. Please note that after the 6 January deadline it is not possible to add or amend files. The recordings will only be assessed if there is also a complete application in UCAS Conservatoires.
The recordings are assessed by the Choral Conducting department entry panel. This is the equivalent of the first-round live performance given by a performance candidate to a panel at the Academy.
These live assessments for candidates selected from the first round will be held at the Royal Academy of Music in London, each candidate's assessments will be completed within one day.
Please learn all four works listed below for the first round.
You will be asked to rehearse one of them with a small choir of Academy students (12 singers) for approximately 12 minutes. Please use the PDF versions available below, these are the editions which the choir will have.
In addition, you will rehearse for 12 minutes a contrasting or complementary piece of your own choice for unaccompanied choir (sacred or secular, in English or Latin) but of a later musical period than Byrd, Gibbons and Tomkins. For this you may choose to rehearse the entire work, or train the choir in a portion of it, based on your assessment of the group in the earlier work.
Also there will be an assessment of aural ability. The aural tests may involve some or all of the following: identification of intervals, identification of how many notes in a chord, identification of a common chord after an unrelated named note has been sounded.
Selected students will then be invited to interview with the audition panel later the same day.
In your interview you will be asked to conduct the opening of a number of choral excerpts, which you will be given prior to the interview, and to comment on them. Your interview may also include questions about your experience and prior knowledge of choral repertoire, general musical knowledge and enthusiasms, your career aspirations and outlook, as well as technical and interpretational matters arising from the audition. You will be asked to sight-sing.
You may also be asked to have a subsequent online interview with one of the postgraduate programme tutors.
Master of Arts (MA) - there are no academic written requirements required to support your application.
Master of Music (MMus)
Applicants for the Master of Music (MMus) course need to submit written requirements in their Acceptd profile, please view these on the entry requirements page of the website.
All Master of Music candidates are automatically considered for Master of Arts, so if you are also interested in MA study you should only apply for MMus because there will only be one audition.
You are not tied to the course choice in your application; this can be discussed and adjusted as appropriate.
We assess everyone who applies on time and pays their application and assessment fee.
Information on the assessment fee and waivers can be found in the Your Application pages.
