Our Facilities

Burdall's Yard

Burdall's Yard is an exciting new arts centre for the School of Music & Performing Arts in Bath city centre. The centre is used as a teaching, rehearsal and performance space and has already hosted several hugely successful events including Party in the City (Bath Festival) and a special UK Songwriting Festival gig with singer songwriter Eddi Reader. The venue is also enjoying a successful run of comedy nights and acoustic gig nights, such as 'Girls With Guitars' and 'These Beautiful Things'.

Corsham Court Barn

Corsham Court Barn is part of Bath Spa University's postgraduate provision at Corsham Court Centre. The recently refurbished barn houses the Music & Performing Arts Masters in Music Course which offers 4 different pathways:

• Creative Sound & Media Technology
• Composition
• Performance
• Songwriting

The Barn consists of a large teaching and performance space and is regularly used for conferences, such as the recent Game Audio Conference. It also has four hi-tech studio pods and a high level control station, complete with 48 channel mixer.

The Gamelan

The Gamelan - whose purchase was funded by the National Foundation for Youth Music - is a collection of hand-crafted Indonesian percussion instruments, which can be played by up to 20 people. One of the key objectives of the project was to involve young people under the age of 18.
A Gamelan (the word comes from the Javanese 'gamal', which means hammer) is not a single instrument, but a collection of instruments that can be played by a variable number of musicians from 4 to 40. The mainstay of the group are 8 to 10 metal percussion instruments which are like glockenspiels in that they have 10-12 metal bars which are hit with a mallet. These instruments playa melody cycle that is repeated as many times as is wanted. Around these instruments other larger metal and wood percussion instruments add a bass below and an elaboration of the melody above.

A distinctive feature of the gamelan is the very large gongs that punctuate the music and give it structure. As well as the percussion instruments are a range of others - suling flute, a bowed rebab, zither and drums that add further spice to the music.

Javanese traditional music (karawitan) is highly spiritual and the gamelan itself is a mystic religious qualities. It is held in high reverence and each Gamelan is a unique entity with its own qualities and strengths. The University's gamelan has been named Sumekar.

The Michael Tippett Centre

In the 60s and 70s Sir Michael Tippett lived in Corsham and was involved as an External Examiner with the music course at the School of Art and Design. He visited the University (then college) during that time and, as the Artistic Director of the Bath Festival, invited our choir and orchestra to take part in the Festival as performers. The university has subsequently enjoyed a close association with the Festival.
When the original Centre was finished it seemed the right opportunity to celebrate not only Sir Michael's connection with us but his work as one of the most important composers of our time. He gave his permission for his name to be used, and came to open the original Centre, returning two years later to receive an honorary Fellowship.

The Centre is the only purpose-built space for chamber music and smaller ensembles in the area and has one of the finest acoustics for this type of music in the South West. At its heart will always lie the promotion of music made by and for students.

Multi-Media Labs

The School of Music and Performing Arts has two multimedia labs; one dedicated to Dance, containing 10 iMacs used specifically for video editing, and a larger one (pictured) housing 44 iMacs which are used by the music courses for a wide variety of tasks using the following software:
Audio:

• Apple Logic Pro
• Avid ProTools
• Ableton Live
• Max/MSP/Jitter
• PD
• Plug-ins by McDSP, Waves, & GRM Tools

Video:

• Apple Final Cut Pro Studio

Multimedia:

• Adobe Creative Suite (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash)

Music Rehearsal Facilities

The music department has five full-band rehearsal rooms, all equipped with PA, guitar/bass backline, drum kit and keyboards. The facilities are mainly used by Commercial Music students to support their tour and album modules. Two of the rooms have tie-lines into our Pro Tools HD studios.

Recording Studios

In addition to our 50+ Apple Mac workstations (all equipped with Pro Tools, Logic Pro etc) we have five high quality studios running Pro Tools HD systems. These are used for our Commercial Music students for their album projects, and Creative Music Technology students for Audio Post and other high-end production projects.

Theatre Production Centre

The new Theatre Production Centre is located between the Newton Park Campus and Bath City Centre at Ashman's Yard. Students undertake practical work on the BA (Hons) Theatre Production course in this exciting new facility which comprises:

• Construction Workshop
• Costume Workshop
• Prop Making Workshop
• Production Office and Mac Edit Suite
• Student Common Room

University Theatre

The University Theatre was part of a £5.7m scheme designed by Fielden Clegg Bradley Architects LLP. It comprises a 186-seat auditorium with full backstage and technical facilities, plus three large teaching studios.
Its arrival represented an important milestone in our development as the leading arts university in the region (we’re one of the largest ten providers of degrees in Music in the country and currently attract over ten applications for every place in Music, Drama and Dance).

The venue is used intensively by our student actors, directors, production managers, choreographers and dancers, stage managers and lighting and sound designers and is home to many student performances.

It forms part of the University’s ‘Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning’ - a £4.5m national award for high quality teaching and innovation in the arts.

Together with the Michael Tippett Centre’s concert hall, the University Theatre constitutes a significant arts complex for the region that will help support its developing reputation in the creative and cultural industries.