PhD/MPhil Music

The Department of Music is at the forefront of current research and postgraduate teaching across music styles and repertoires from a wide variety of critical perspectives. From 19th century classical music to game music our staff and postgraduate researchers undertake cutting edge, internationally recognised research, at a university home to the first academic centre created specifically to study popular music, founded in 1988.IntroductionIn a UNESCO City of Music with a wealth of musical institutions, organisations, festivals and events, our PhD researchers have the opportunity to both study and participate through partnership with locally based cultural and creative industries.The Department of Music offers a stimulating research environment. Our critically acclaimed research encompasses a wide spectrum of music studies. With two supervisors assigned to every PhD researcher, we encourage imaginative combinations of discipline and repertoire to explore new approaches to creative musical excellence and research innovation.Our world-leading expertise in music encompasses numerous methodological approaches and critical perspectives including critical musicology, popular music studies, composition, music psychology and ethnomusicology.Research topicsOur lecturers and postgraduate researchers conduct research on a wide variety of topics in a vibrant and diverse department within an internationally renowned city of music.We invite research proposals that match those of our researchers, whose profiles can be viewed via our staff pages. We particularly welcome proposals in any of the following areas:Music and the moving image (film, television, music in gaming, and music videos)Critical theoretical approaches (including gender studies, race and ethnicity, and diaspora)Jazz studiesEarly musicMusic analysis (with a particular emphasis on aesthetics, psychoanalysis, music and emotion, and popular music)Heritage and historyComposition (with a particular emphasis on its intersection with technology)Technology and digitisationMusic psychology.