MA Music: Performance pathway
The Performance pathway challenges and nurtures students interested in improving their performance, culminating in a 50-minute solo recital.
Specialist Tuition
Our instrumental and vocal tutors are all professional musicians, and many of them teach in major British conservatoires and specialist music schools. Our list of instrumental and vocal teachers includes those who have current students within the Department of Music. If your instrument does not appear on the list, please don't worry; we will provide you with a suitable teacher drawing on our extensive contacts locally and nationally.
As a student on the MA in Music (performance pathway), you will benefit from a programme of individual lessons funded by the Department.
We have a close relationship with several ensembles-in-residence, including Bristol Ensemble. Weekly Creative Performance sessions help students to develop collaborative and individual skills as well as professional development. Visitors since 2023 include Pulitzer prize-winning composer Anthony Davies, conductors Martyn Brabbins and Jonathan James, classical singers Sian Dicker and Emma Tring, jazz singer Rob Short, and clarinettist Michael Collins, and we have had staff-led workshops on Makam, mindfulness for musicians, electro-acoustic performance, vocal expression and creating improvisatory sound circles, as well as workshops where students can showcase repertoire for their upcoming assessed recitals.
Coursework units
The MA in Music (performance pathway) also offers a number of core and optional units to complement your study and support your talent.
All MA in Music students take an introductory course in Research Skills for Musicians during the first semester.
Two "Readings and Repertoires" units introduce students to a wide variety of topics and approaches. Every discipline has its ‘state of the art’. The intellectual positions, debates and contentions, creative and interpretive practices of today are founded both on primary sources – which might come from a wide range of historical and cultural origins – and on the cumulative network of understandings and responses leading to the present day. These foundational units build your knowledge and understanding and engagement in that state of the art. These units have a variety of optional assessment modes; most of our Performance pathway students record short lecture-recitals in small groups, to showcase what they have learned.
Together with these mandatory units, all Musicology pathway students are offered a choice of optional units in the Music Department. Many of our Performance pathway students select Composers and Performers (where they work together with student composers to generate new music and perform it), and Chamber Music Duos, which develops skills in small ensemble rehearsal and performance.
Admissions Portfolio
When applying for the Performance pathway please also submit an audition video for assessment. You can upload your piece via a video sharing website, such as YouTube or Vimeo. Please state your audition video's weblink at the bottom of your personal statement. You should provide two contrasting pieces, totalling no more than 15 minutes. We can not assess your application without your audition online video.
More information about MA Music