Disseminating Tonal Music in the Twenty-First Century

The writing of tonal music, or music which is created using a tonal hierarchy (whether traditional or contemporary) is a strong research ethos at the Department of Music with academic staff and graduate students working in this field. The department has a reputation as a centre for the production of tonal music with practitioners working at the highest level. The portfolio of original compositions would be the culmination of the research undertaken by the candidate in which he/she would have composed several pieces of music all research-informed through the different strands available in the department. The candidate would be expected to carry out original research in composition, but also in the field of the reception and evaluation of tonal music in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The final portfolio would not only be expected to show an original creative mind, but also to show how these compositions fit into a contemporary understanding of tonality and how composers have shaped this medium in their work.