The Department of Music, part of the School of Humanities, is housed in modern, purpose-built accommodation within the Lakeside Arts Centre. The practical and technical facilities are excellent, including a well-stocked, on-site library with listening area and multimedia facilities; a modern studio with first-rate equipment for electronic composition; an audio-visual archive; a PC lab giving access to word-processing and music-notation software; a dedicated postgraduate study room with networked PCs and a wireless router; a new, large practice hall; and practice rooms with new pianos.
There is also the renowned Djanogly Recital Hall where performances of all kinds take place, including a regular series of professional concerts throughout the year, as well as public recitals by students and concerts including student compositions. Adjacent is a new purpose-built rehearsal hall.
The department offers a wide spectrum of musical activity in both academic and practical spheres, and has particular research strengths in 19th and 20th century music, geography, film music, opera, analysis, medieval and early modern studies, source study and editions, feminist theory, jazz, popular music, and composition. All departmental staff have international reputations in their own research and the department gained a grade 5*A in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The department regularly hosts major academic conferences, and organises three regular series of music colloquia - MOSS (on stage and screen music), Space of Sound (on music and geography), and a general musicological series - featuring distinguished guest speakers and research students.
For research students, the Graduate School offers a comprehensive range of research training courses. Postgraduate students in the department are also eligible to take the Academic German course offered by the School of Humanities and designed for students with little or no German language experience.
Recent developments
The department enjoys a vibrant and unique research culture. It pioneers work in music and geography, with multiple staff publishing innovative work in the area, a dedicated colloquium series, several MA pathways, an introductory postgraduate module and extensive collaboration with the School of Geography (which also has researchers in the area). The Centre for Music On Stage and Screen (MOSS) also co-ordinates multiple staff specialisations, with its own colloquium series, special events, and an extensive history of relevant staff publications. In addition, staff and student work in composition, film music, opera, early music, 20th- and 21st-century music, popular music, and gender studies features prominently in departmental research life.
Recent research projects
Recent research projects in the department include, among others, an edition of Early English Church Music, a project on Music and the Melodramatic Aesthetic, the composition of a Violin Concerto, and a project on classical music and urban geography in contemporary Paris.