Bath Spa University

This page may contain additional navigation below.

Music

Great opportunities for music-making and an exciting and varied programme in classical, jazz, musical theatre, opera and world music.

For more information about this course please visit the School of Music and Performing Arts website.

Music at Bath Spa University is part of a vibrant School of Music and Performing Arts with outstanding facilities. There is an exciting and creative programme of student performance and composition, which combines with our professional concert series based at the Michael Tippett Centre concert hall. BA Music offers specialist modules in classical and jazz performance and composition. Performance opportunities include annual staged musical theatre and opera productions and a range of ensembles from big band to wind band, early music to gamelan ensemble as well as several choirs.

With around 120 students on BA Music, and 60 students taking music combined with another subject, we are large enough to take on performance projects such as the recent British premiere of Philip Glass's opera Satyagraha and Karl Jenkins' oratorio The Armed Man, but small enough to have a real sense of community, helped in no small part by the beautiful campus and surroundings. The Music team is keen to make you feel involved in the subject, and you'll have plenty of opportunity to contact your tutor formally and informally.

The BA Music course emphasises creativity through performance and composition, and is also alive to the constantly changing needs of the job market. The instrumentalist as teacher and performer, the composer in education, arts administration, music promotion and music in the community are just some of the career possibilities that Bath Spa University will open up to you. You can be creative and productive in the Bath Spa University environment while developing new and useful skills and experience.

Course Structure and Content

Year 1

Performance Studies consists of first study lessons, optional second study lessons and keyboard support, together with workshops on performance techniques, aural awareness, and conducting.

Creative Forum is a composition skills module allowing free composition while focusing on a range of compositional techniques, notation, arranging, orchestration, and the use of music technology.

Rethinking Music includes study and research skills for musicians, analytical skills and the close study of landmark musical works and genres from medieval to pop, with a series of seminars around cultural and musicological issues in music today.

Year 2

You continue with Rethinking Music and take a specialist Professional and Academic Development course which includes work placements. A choice of four other modules builds on the acquisition, consolidation and development of musical skills, and encourages you to begin working in a specialist area matching your particular strengths, whether in performance, composition or musicology in classical or jazz styles.

Year 3

You have the freedom for originality and creative output in two Advanced Specialist modules (such as performance or composition) together with the choice of a wide range of supporting modules. In this way you can tailor your degree to your own interests with the help and support of Bath Spa University staff.

Modules

Year 1

Performance Studies (including instrumental/vocal lessons, optional second study, aural analysis, conducting);
Creative Forum - composition skills, music technology;
Rethinking Music - musical styles, set works, research skills, critical musicology.

Year 2

Performance and Teaching;
Performing and Improvising Jazz;
Musical Theatre Project;
Opera Project;
Composing for Dance;
Composing for Education;
Composition and Arrangement;
Ethnomusicology and Globalisation;
Jazz and Pop Musicology;
Professional and Academic Development.

Year 3

Performance;
Performance Practice;
Performing and Improvising Jazz;
Jazz Composition and Arranging;
Composition Commission;
Popular Music;
19th Century Musicology;
Chamber Music;
Film Music Studies;
Music in Action (Community Music);
Musical Theatre Project;
Opera Project;
Advanced Research Skills;
Dissertation or Lecture Recital.

Teaching Methods and Resources

Music is taught through workshops, lectures, seminars, individual tutorials and instrumental/vocal lessons.

Practical workshops in performance and composition are given by distinguished full-time staff who are all practising performers, composers and musicologists. Clarinettist Roger Heaton is one of this country's foremost performers of new music, recording regularly for CD and radio, and was formerly Music Director and Conductor of Rambert Dance Company; Matthew Spring is a leading performer of early music with his group Sirinu, and his major book The Lute in Britain has recently been published by Oxford University Press. Charles Wiffen is a pianist and musicologist who has performed and recorded widely in the UK (including in the BBC Proms) and abroad and has previously taught at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music in London.

Performance

Every week a day is dedicated to ensemble performance and related activities for students in all years, including choir (with Nigel Perrin), orchestra, wind band, big band and gamelan. There are numerous student performances through the year both at the Michael Tippett Centre, and in Bath and beyond. Each year the School promotes two major opera and musical theatre performances, in which music students take part. Recent performances have included three operas by American composers Philip Glass and Robert Moran, Mozart's The Magic Flute, Kurt Weill's Happy End, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Sondheim's Into The Woods and Handel's Semele.

Facilities

Based at the Michael Tippett Centre, we have superb facilities including:

A purpose built concert hall with superb acoustics;
17 practice rooms, three with electronically variable acoustic;
A wide range of medieval, renaissance and baroque instruments, and a large collection of percussion and orchestral instruments;
A Javanese Gamelan;
Three networked music technology labs with Pro Tools, Logic, MAX/ MSP, Sibelius;
Two digital recording studios and two band rehearsal rooms;
Large well-stocked Music Library.

Bath and nearby Bristol are busy centres for performance with many international music festivals, touring operas, concerts and shows. Bath particularly has an extensive semi- professional and amateur life with many opportunities for students to join in music-making in the city.

Visiting Staff

Visiting staff include performers and composers with international reputations and there is a busy schedule of master-classes and workshops. Recent visitors have included composers Mark-Anthony Turnage and David Matthews, violinist Madeleine Mitchell, pianist Peter Donohue and the percussion group Ensemble Bash. Bath Phil are the ensemble in residence. The regular instrumental and vocal staff includes performers and composers such as soprano Rosa Mannion, who has performed major operatic roles around the world, trumpeter Paul Archibald, jazz performer/composer Mike Mower, orchestral members of the Welsh National Opera, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Bath Philharmonia, and busy freelance players regularly working in London and regional orchestras, chamber ensembles, touring opera groups and West End shows.

Notes

Recent student performances have included three operas by American composers Philip Glass and Robert Moran, Mozart's The Magic Flute, Kurt Weill's Happy End, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and the musical Blondel.

Classes and ensembles open to all students in all years include:

Orchestra
Choir
Chamber choir
Wind band
Big band
Orchestral repertoire for wind and brass
String ensemble
Jazz group
Guitar ensemble
Clarinet choir
Gamelan group
Song class
Conducting
Keyboard skills

Student Placements

Recent student placements in the Professional Development module have included the Bath Festival, the BBC Proms, Welsh National Opera, Future Publishing, and Real World.

Entry Requirements

220-260 UCAS Tariff points (eg BCD; BB+AS c), preferably including Music at minimum grade C, plus a good standard of practical instrumental/vocal performance at Grade 8 (ABRSM) or equivalent.

Alternative qualifications welcome (applicants over 21 without the normal entry requirements will be considered individually).

Single Hons applicants will be interviewed.