The Music School, Palace Green, Durham DH1 3RL, UK

Undergraduate program

Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Music. Three years. Studies in performance (classical, early music), choral and instrumental conducting, musicology, ethnomusicology, analysis, critical theory, composition, theory, aural skills, sound design. A wide choice of electives is offered. Music may be combined with studies in another subject area.

Graduate programs

Master of Arts. In performance, composition (acoustic or electronic), ethnomusicology, musicology, music and science. Master of Music. In musicology, ethnomusicology, composition. Doctor of Philosophy. Doctor of Music.

The university was founded in 1832 and the first music examinations took place at Durham in 1890. This is a collegiate university - the colleges are not teaching bodies, nor are they purely residential. Typically they provide a centre for students’ sporting, social and residential activities, and each provides tutors to assist students studying at the university. The Bachelor of Arts program, one of the first of its type in the country, was begun in 1947. The Department of Music is in a splendid location, just metres from Durham’s fine Norman cathedral and Durham Castle (now University College). There are close links with the cathedral, and choral and organ scholarships are awarded. All music facilities, including practice rooms, listening equipment, studios, library resources and IT facilities are located in or around the Music Department. The Department sees its particular strengths as in ethnomusicology (specifically East Asia), composition, electronic music, analysis and British music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is a Centre for Contemporary Music and a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The library holds a collection of Britten correspondence and related manuscripts, medieval liturgical manuscripts and the Dame Ethel Smythe manuscripts, the archive of Else Headlam-Morley, and a unique collection of degree exercises (including those of Walter Carroll, W G Whittaker, John Ireland and Malcolm Sargent). The music school is an All-Steinway School and also owns a gamelan. Students of musicology have access to the Chapter Library of Durham Cathedral with its priceless collection of printed and manuscript source material of early music.

September 2022