Develop your performance talents in a friendly and inspiring atmosphere.
This course provides students with a strong grounding in performing arts and introduces a broad range of topics that support progression to further study.
Our aim is to encourage you to develop a knowledge and understanding of performing arts, and to grow in confidence across a range of disciplines. Students will build upon existing skills, and learn new acting and dance techniques for rehearsals and performances – all within a highly creative arts college environment.
Our performing arts students benefit from the College’s partnerships and links to:
- Hay Festival
- Pentabus Theatre
- The Courtyard Centre for the Arts
- Dancefest
- Aerial Dance Hereford Performing Arts
Key Areas
Acting skills and techniques.
Employment opportunities and skills.
Dance skills and techniques.
Production roles and opportunities.
Musical theatre performance.
Studying Composition at Guildhall Artist Masters level prepares you for professional life as a composer. It allows you to explore and refine your individual artistic voice within the collaborative atmosphere of a busy, modern conservatoire, while also giving you the space for self-reflection. The MMus/MComp can also be studied as a purely electronic specialism.
Guildhall School offers some of the most stimulating and creative training for composers in the UK. Studying Composition at Guildhall Artist Masters level prepares you for professional life as a composer. It allows you to explore and refine your individual artistic voice within the collaborative atmosphere of a busy, modern conservatoire, while also giving you the space for self-reflection.
The programme centres around weekly one-to-one Principal Study lessons. You will be allocated to one of the Department’s distinguished Faculty of composers, who will guide your creative participation on core projects across the year. The outcomes of core projects are all workshopped, rehearsed, publicly performed and recorded. Weekly composition seminars and open sessions support technical, aesthetic and professional development, and a choice of elective modules support specific aspects of your development.
This programme is for advanced students with exceptional aptitude in their specialism, and strong professional and artistic ambitions. It provides specialist, professional training if you are looking to embark on a national and international career.
The Artist Diploma represents post-Masters progression, and is designed to meet the specialised needs and aspirations of outstanding performance students, and to support them with the competence and sensitivity required.
Get ready for an exhilarating and challenging journey to prepare you for life as an independent, creative professional actor.
You’ll be encouraged to take an independent and imaginative approach to the craft, as you build a full range of relevant movement, voice, musical and acting skills.
The skills you’ll learn will draw on the latest developments in the industry, enhanced by your teachers’ knowledge and experience and supported by the advanced performance technologies which we have in our cutting-edge facilities.
The Ensemble is at the heart of how we’ll train you. Drama is a collaborative art form and we place great emphasis on the individual’s responsibility to the group and the group’s responsibility to the individual. This creates an atmosphere of mutual respect where creativity can flourish.
You’ll gain confidence during your training, learning that an authentic and enthusiastic approach is the best preparation for a life in a dynamic profession. You’ll learn how to meet challenges head-on from the new knowledge and skills you’ll develop in your training.
In association with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
This Masters programme allows composers and writers to focus on how new opera is created, developed and performed. Part of an exciting partnership between Guildhall School and the Royal Opera House, the programme centres around the creation of a 25-minute chamber opera which is fully staged in Milton Court Studio Theatre.
The programme admits three composers and three writers each year. During an initial induction module, students pair up into composer-writer teams. Each team develops a short opera scene, before going on to create full chamber operas. Two smaller projects allow you to follow your own creative pathway: in poetry, prose, dramatic or film script (writers), and in vocal or instrumental/ electronic works (composers).
The programme focuses on the collaborative nature of opera making, and each composerwriter team is supported by collaborative mentoring. Students also take part in one-to-one tutorials, production seminars and creative development workshops.
Led by Julian Philips, Head of Composition, Stephen Plaice, Writer-in-Residence, and Laura Bowler, composition professor, teaching is enriched through regular seminars with visiting professionals from the opera world including conductors and directors, singers and instrumentalists, designers and stage managers.
The programme collaborates closely with Guildhall’s award-winning Opera Department, led by Dominic Wheeler, with Guildhall opera singers forming the cast for the chamber operas created by composer-writer teams.
Practical experience of opera during the year is hugely augmented by the programme’s association with the Royal Opera House, which provides opportunities to see productions in rehearsal and performance, and to meet and network with key resident and visiting practitioners.
We want you to be a multi-skilled practitioner able to work in all areas of sound to build a sustained career in the audio industry. This course develops your skills in recorded sound, live sound and post-production.
We teach you why as well as how, so that you have a strong theoretical base to draw on and help you be adaptable to change. You learn and practice using industry-standard equipment in our studios and performance spaces (24/7 access to our studios during term-time).
Through projects with students on performance and making performance possible courses, you develop essential interpersonal and collaborative skills.
The Masters in Music Therapy aims to develop students’ musicianship and personal potential, and equip them with the knowledge and skills to work as a registered music therapist.
On this programme, students gain experience working with adults and children alongside qualified music therapists on placements in a variety of settings including special and mainstream schools, and with people who experience:
- Mental health problems
- Dementia
- Learning disabilities
- School exclusion
- Communication delay
- Autism
- Acquired brain injury or stroke
- Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties
During the programme, students must undertake a minimum of 40 hours of individual personal therapy as a requirement from the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). This is an additional cost not covered by the tuition fees (funding support is available - see our Postgraduate Funding page for more information).
We want to ensure you become who you want to be musically and can make your living working with music. The course helps you develop your skills in popular, contemporary and commercial music and equips you with the essential business skills to succeed. You’ll develop a broad range of skills across performance, songwriting and the production of song demos.
You get your music in front of an audience through frequent gig nights, regular festivals and industry showcases. Aside from the business, you also learn how to match your music with an audience. You can collaborate with students from other courses, for example: recorded and live sound, lighting design and management students.
A one-year Masters programme aims to bring together early-career theatre practitioners to develop new theatre and performance work.
Please note, this programme is undergoing periodic review during the 2022-23 academic year and is therefore subject to change.
This one-year Masters programme aims to bring together early-career theatre practitioners to develop new theatre and performance work. These practitioners include:
- Designers
- Sound Designers
- Lighting Designers
- Production Managers
- Stage Managers
- Video Designers
- Directors
- Writers
- All-round theatre-makers
Students work together in creative teams on an exciting and varied array of theatre projects. The programme is not intended to deliver core technical skills, but rather to develop your theatre making abilities, exploring your potential as a creative artist and enabling you to work with other students on a series of collaborative projects.
We want to strengthen your music skills in musicianship, music writing and producing music.
This means you’re able to build on your existing music skills while developing a working knowledge of songwriting and music production. You also receive one-to-one tuition in a chosen instrument (or voice). The course shares many modules and activities with our foundation year for BA (Hons) Music (Songwriting & Performance), so you learn alongside a wide group of musicians, which benefits you for ensemble work.
