Performance B Mus (Hons)

The four year BMus (Hons) gives you more extensive individual tuition comparable to the levels you would receive in a conservatoire, and more chamber music, ensemble or orchestral coaching.

You’ll also be trained in the art of performance itself, study performance anxiety, the use of gesture in performance, concert and event hosting, and can choose to study Alexander Technique, Yoga, dance and acting alongside a wide choice of contextual modules. Our ensembles are involved in a lot of performance work along with a rich programme of concerts, recitals and masterclasses by visiting artists. A sample of what they’ve been doing in 2011-12 is described in the current edition of ‘What’s On’ which can be found at: www.chi.ac.uk/music

Some of the performance modules you might take…

• Performance Development modules

The first year of study is intended to put in place the basic performance and communication skills on which your subsequent achievement and technical and expressive development will depend. In the first year you will assess your current repertoire and begin an exploration of new work under the direction of your individual vocal or instrumental specialist teacher.

Subsequent years of study develop an exploration of musical style in practical work and encourages a willingness to approach new and more ambitious repertoires. A more sophisticated relationship to presenting performance and to preparing for audition is encouraged as you progress through your degree.

• Performance Anxiety

This module examines theories in the study of performance anxiety and helps you to develop skills in analysing contexts where anxiety can affect performance. The module also offers an opportunity in allowing you to reflect upon how performance anxiety may affect your own performance and research ways of handling these issues.

• Movement and Gesture

The musician expects to be a performer for much of the time, but rarely attributes to the success of a musical performance the extramusical attributes of physical confidence, expressive body language and communicative movement. This course is intended as a complement for Performance Development, allowing you to develop skills in the physical projection of musical expression which will prove invaluable in supporting your performance practice.

The ideas and concepts, and the inherited behavioural codes which lie behind our instinctive interpretation of movement and gesture are important too, and the course aims to couple the acquisition of practical skills with an understanding of their social origins.

• Musical Event

Performers work in a myriad of identified disciplines and genres, often producing a strongly defined self-image at an early stage in their acquisition of skills. This course is intended to engage you in the production and development of a major and a-typical musical event, including the option of multidisciplinary and cross-arts collaborations, and to lead to the questioning and testing of this self-image. The course is intended as a development of Movement and Gesture, and as with that module, examining ideas and concepts behind the art-work, and the inherited behavioural codes which inform its reception by the viewer/listener, will be important aims for participants.

• Ensemble Experience

For students who have chosen to focus on performance, the ensemble modules are intended to develop an exploration of musical style in practical work and to encourage a willingness to approach chamber music and other relevant ensemble styles. A more team based relationship to presenting and preparing performance is encouraged and you will undertake this work under the direction of a specialist ensemble coach. In your final year of study you will work towards more polished and professional standards in group performance and presentation. This module aims to consolidate existing repertoire(s) and to foreground strengths within the individual's overall repertoire, and you will also join in hosting a campus event – liaising with external artists, welcoming the audience and representing the university.

• Performance Personal Study

Everyone completes a personal study as part of their undergraduate work, and for performers this is an opportunity to present a longer and more challenging programme of work.

Why this Course?

• Extensive one-to-one instrumental or vocal tuition
• Practice rooms with new grand pianos supplied by Steinway & Sons, an acoustically superb performance venue with two Steinway model D concert grands, a concert organ, Baroque and modern pitch harpsichords and a genuine theatre with a proscenium stage and orchestra pit
• Four orchestras, five choirs, and nine other taught performance ensembles
• Around 75% performance work
• Community of 400+ student performers
• Opportunities to take part in overseas concert tours

Careers

• Solo Performance
• Teaching at all levels of education
• Musical theatre
• Music leaders
• Opera singers
• Group instrumentalists
• Cruise musicians

Entry Requirements

4 years full time