Music
Our staff are active researchers and excellent teachers who have established Newcastle University’s international reputation in musicology, composition and performance. Their work covers a range of musical repertoires (classical, early, popular, folk and traditional, contemporary, avant-garde and jazz) and they have particular expertise in popular music, cultural theory, ethnomusicology, early music, gender studies, cultural history and historiography, music analysis and aesthetics, studio and notated composition, improvisation, and performance.
In the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, 80 per cent of our research was classed as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, placing us in the top 10 universities in the UK in terms of research quality.
As a postgraduate student, you will be part of this lively and supportive community of researchers, practitioners and students and will have access to excellent facilities. The new £4.5 million Music Studio has 24-hour practice rooms, including a large ensemble/band room, and studios equipped with state-of-the-art technology for sound synthesis, composition and recording.
The Culture Lab is a multimedia research facility with open-plan research space, and dedicated electronics, workshop, multimedia and sound spaces. There is online access to a range of sound archives including the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries, American Song, African American Music, Classical Music Library and FARNE: Folk Archive Resource North East. We subscribe to over 100 musical journals and to definitive music resources including Grove Music Online and the Garland Encyclopaedia of World Music. The extensive library collection also includes books, periodicals, scores and recordings.
In both our taught programmes and research degrees, we offer you a lot of flexibility and choice. For example, students on the more theoretical MA in Music can choose modules from the MMus programme and vice versa. The selection of projects available to students on the MA in Music and Education is enriched through our leading role in the CETL (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning): Music and Inclusivity, as well as through our links with the Sage Gateshead’s education programme and our partnership with Bergen University College’s Music Education Master’s programme.
We have a number of postgraduate studentships for 2012 entry that will be advertised when details are available. These include: PhD studentships and a MMus studentship funded by the AHRC; the Sager Family Foundation Scholarship for Working Musicians; and the Florence Hilda Yates Studentship.
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“The course has a wide range of modules to choose from, which meant I could tailor the course to suit my interests and strengths and still have the opportunity to learn new things.”