Postgraduate Courses (MA by Research, MPhil, PhD)

The postgraduate degrees in new music at Huddersfield seek to foster exploration, experimentation, and musical creativity at the highest level. Our students come from a wide range of aesthetic backgrounds and practices, and this diversity is supported and encouraged by a staff with similarly broad creative and research interests. Subject areas cover all aspects of new music including composition, contemporary music performance, live electronics, interactive technologies, improvisation, contemporary musicology and analysis, and sound art.

Each of CeReNeM’s postgraduate programmes – MA by Research, MPhil, and PhD – are unique for their flexibility and support of collaborative and cross-disciplinary work. In addition to individual lessons, students are offered an extensive and diverse series of research seminars and workshops. Examples include: Deleuze and Bergson on time, repetition and memory; new music-theatre and opera; music of the last decade; extended techniques and computer-aided timbral analysis; ~jitter/open gl/shader coding; sound spatialisation and multi-channel diffusion theory and practice; composer-performer workshop; coding Max/MSP externals; analysis of cross-cultural composition; notation; and improvisation and open music.

These seminars and workshops are supplemented by the departmental Research Fora, a fortnightly lecture series of invited international scholars, and the CeReNeM/Composition Colloquium, which allows student composers and performers to present their work informally to peers and staff. The visiting artists of the CeReNeM Concert Series regularly perform student compositions and give lessons and workshops for student performers. All CeReNeM students have access to the excellent facilities and resources of the Music and Music Technology departments.

Students

Our recent and current post-graduate students are establishing themselves as significant emerging composers and performers with impressive burgeoning international careers, including:

Courses/Degrees

All postgraduate degree programmes are comprised of individual lessons/tutorials, plus a range of available supporting seminars, workshops, and participation in the Research Forum and CeReNeM Colloquium. Each student’s programme of study will be tailored to their individual needs and interests, supervised by one or more members of academic staff. The research carried out by the academic staff was deemed to be of an exceptionally high quality in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, with 95% of research considered to be of international or world-leading standard.

To Apply

To apply, please submit the research Degree Application Form. Applicants should also submit:

• At least three relevant samples of creative work (scores, recordings, videos, etc.)
• An example of a piece of written work on a musical topic

A number of departmental scholarships are available, ranging from £500 to full fee waivers. Stipends and paid teaching opportunities are available to PhD candidates on a competitive basis. MPhil and PhD applicants applying for fee waivers/scholarships should apply by February 1. Bursary application information for MA by Research applicants will be sent after the candidate has been admitted.