The MA in Music Education and Performance is designed for any student wishing to pursue an active career as both a professional musician and a teacher or educator. It aims to equip you with the necessary musical skills, insight and experience required by the contemporary profession in its widest sense, with a focus on the artist in educational settings, from instrumental and/or vocal teaching to workshop leading.

This programme can be taken on a full-time intensive basis for four terms (15 months, Sept 2021 – Dec 2022) or on a part-time basis over seven terms (27 months, Sept 2021 – Dec 2023). The programme is auditioned and accepts students in composition and classical or jazz performance. Teacher-artists in other genres will be more suited to the Teaching Musician Programme, which shares some modules with the MA MEP.

The Master of Music (MMus) programme is designed for students wishing to be professional musicians: performers and composers. It aims to equip students with the necessary musical skills, insight and and experience required by the contemporary profession in its widest sense but with a focus on the Western Classical and Jazz traditions.

Our named Awards: Collaborative Piano, Composition, Ensemble Artistry, Jazz, Performance and Performer-Composer each offer comprehensive specialist training pathways. (Find out more in Course Details).

Key Features

- Provides advanced musical training at postgraduate level which encourages the demonstration of individual musical talent and scholarship.
- Enables musicians of proven ability, and with the potential for further training, to advance and refine their skills and specialism/s and deepen their professional expertise.
- Acknowledges the significance of musical context, highlighting the relationship of music to wider artistic, historical, philosophical, cultural and/or social practices, issues and/or phenomena.
- Cultivates musicians who have the ability to work in a variety of complex musical groupings and to exercise leadership in professional practice.
- Creates an environment which encourages risk and nurtures creativity and innovation, reflecting cutting-edge thinking within the profession.
- Produces enterprising, entrepreneurial musicians equipped both for today’s diverse, internationalised and ever-changing music profession.
- Explores the application of artistic research within a clearly defined are of music.

The BA (Hons) Professional Dance and Musical Theatre is a high-calibre vocational programme which will equip you for a career in the professional entertainment industry.

The BA (Hons) Professional Dance and Musical Theatre is a high-calibre vocational programme which will equip you for a career in the professional entertainment industry. The three-year programme offers intensive specialist training in dance, singing and acting, aiming to provide you with excellent employment skills. Upon graduation, employment may include musicals (West End and touring), dance companies, television, theatre and education.

After the first year you undertake your studies within a more focused specialist track: triple threat training, singer/acting focus or a more dance-based track. This allows you to choose a direction of study in the second and third year that is in line with your skills, abilities and likely destination.

This BA (Hons) Professional Dance and Musical Theatre is validated by the University of Birmingham.

The Course:
- Full-time, delivered over three years
- High contact hours
- Vocational and academic studies
- Practical skills including dance, singing and acting
- Variety of performance opportunities including musicals and showcase
- Small class sizes to ensure effective individual learning
- Greater understanding of cultural and historical developments through academic study and research projects
- Offers opportunities to be creative through guided choreography projects
- Career guidance and industry advice opportunities
- Opportunity to be seen by a range of industry professionals prior to graduation

Our one-year Foundation Course prepares students aged 17 years and over for auditions and study in further vocational training.

Performance technique and ability make up a large component of this course with tailored, actionable feedback which is an important part of each individual’s development. The course also includes the Urdang Dance & Theatre Syllabus Level 4 Diploma in Musical Theatre (Performance) [subject to validation] which enables the students to develop their academic skills within the subject in preparation for higher education study.

This course is for talented students who are keen to enhance their technical proficiency so they can successfully audition for further studies in musical theatre and dance, whilst also continuing their full time education to gain a qualification to aid in their application to study. Since its introduction in 2009, our one year Foundation Course has proved to be highly successful as a stepping stone for students into further training at a vocational college or university.

The overriding aim of undertaking PhD and MPhil study is to make an original contribution to knowledge. The programmes do not follow a prescribed course of study but benefit from close supervision and a range of research training that is designed to support the project being undertaken, and provide wider opportunities for professional development as a researcher.

Our vibrant multidisciplinary environment includes performance and new work in dance, drama and music, performing arts education and policy, Scottish music, historically-informed performance, musicology, and a range of other specialist areas.

Following a historic agreement between RCS and the University of St Andrews, we offer research degrees leading to the awards of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Master of Philosophy (MPhil). These programmes are validated and awarded by the University of St Andrews.

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland offers opportunities for suitably qualified students to work towards the achievement of research degrees in appropriate areas of enquiry. Applications will only be successful if it is clear that the proposed research can best be undertaken within a Conservatoire context, in which performance and/or creation is held central.

The specific areas for research degrees are:

- the processes and methodologies of developing new performance work (music/drama/music theatre), including collaborative and devised performance
- performance
- musical composition, in all genres, for live, electro-acoustic and mixed media
- Scottish music
- methodologies of specialist performance training, including the use of IT
- socio-cultural studies of performance
- performance education and pedagogy