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Communication & Media Studies (7) Creative Arts & Design (9) Languages, Literature & Culture (21)

  Music - Postgraduate Research Opportunities


  School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music

 Awaiting Funding Decision/Possible External Funding

About the Programme

The Department of Music offers promising candidates the opportunity to carry out research in one of the most dynamic institutions in Britain, with supervision from world-leading academics and access to outstanding facilities. Our world-class facilities include the £16 million Bramall Music Building, which is home to the Music Department and also features the 450-seat Elgar Concert Hall, the most adaptable space of its kind in any university in the UK. The building also contains a suite dedicated to the study and performance of early music, five electroacoustic studios and a large rehearsal room.

We offer three routes to postgraduate research in Music:

Each programme offers both a PhD and MA by Research option. The MA by Research programme requires you to prepare a thesis of up to 40,000 words on a topic of your choice under the expert guidance of an academic member of staff. The PhD, the most advanced research degree, comprises of a thesis of up to 80,000 words on a subject of your choice, again under the expert supervision of an academic member of staff.

You can study all programmes on campus or by distance learning. Please note that if you are studying with us by distance learning, there is a compulsory annual visit to campus (every two years for part-time PhD students).

Research interests of staff include:

Research in the Music Department engages both directly with musical life today, via composition and critical understanding, and the ways in which music has played a role in society from the medieval period to the late twentieth century and have expertise a wide range of areas and approaches/.

For full research interests of staff, please read our staff profiles or visit the 'Research' tab on each programme's webpage.

Funding Notes

Please visit the College of Arts and Law funding page for information on possible funding opportunities: View Website. You can find out about all the scholarships that are available on our Postgraduate Funding Database. If you find a scholarship that you are interested in, we would recommend you check the application guidelines as these can differ between funding schemes. For some of them, you can apply for funding as soon as you have submitted an application for the course. If you would like to start in 2024, applications for the AHRC Midlands4Cities Scholarship opened on 16 October 2023 and closes on 10 January 2024.


Funding Notes

This programme is waiting to confirm funding from a university or external source. This may depend on attracting suitable students and applications are welcome. Please see the programme details for more information.

How good is research at University of Birmingham in Modern Languages and Linguistics?


Research output data provided by the Research Excellence Framework (REF)

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