Music at Durham University

The MA in Music is structured to allow you to intensively pursue a specific sub-discipline in Music, accommodating your particular research interests.

Up to five specialisms will be offered each year:

• Musicology (P1)
• Ethnomusicology (P2)
• Composition (P3)
• Performance (P4)
• Music and Science (P5)

The structure proposed here is broadly similar to courses offered by other Russell Group university music departments, including Bristol, York, and Birmingham, but has distinctive features informed by the department’s research strength in the emergent sub-discipline of Music and Science.

The MA will provide intellectually rigorous preparation for the study of music at an advanced level as an independent researcher in accordance with standard professional expectations attendant on the practice of research as articulated by the AHRC and other research councils. It not only affords opportunities for students to explore a chosen area of specialisation in-depth but provides a research culture that fosters inter-disciplinarity and exchange between sub-disciplines. The research training module is taken jointly by all MA students, and all sub-discipline modules will remain available for auditing by any MA student. The degree also facilitates the study of musical repertories from highly diverse international cultural contexts, thereby fostering intercultural dialogue. The design of each specialism will be similar: students must choose modules from lists A, B, C, and D below:

1. A compulsory core 30-credit module
2. A 60-credit pathway-specific module
3. A 60-credit major research project relating to the chosen pathway of specialisation
4. A 30 or 40-credit option, either an optional Music department 30-credit masters module, a 30-credit masters module in another department, two Music department undergraduate modules (totalling 40 credits), or one Music Department undergraduate 20-credit module and one 20-credit language module through the Centre for Foreign Language Study.