Classes & activities
Core Modules
Undergraduate students take weekly academic classes in addition to their principal study. The classes are designed to complement and add to every student’s creative development as performers.
-
Principal Study
Principal Study of your specialism is the core of your programme. It is taught in individual lessons with your Principal Study Professor and through a range of activities organised by your Department.
-
Analytical Skills
The module provides a grounding in the basic materials of tonal common-practice harmony and counterpoint, and the analysis of smaller-scale musical form.
-
Contexts for Performance
This module develops your understanding of the broader social and cultural contexts of the repertoire and performance practices of Western music from ca. 1600 to 1850. You will explore the stylistic and cultural significance of music at different times and in different places; become more familiar with composers, performers and musical institutions that have shaped music throughout history; and gain a broader understanding of the different ways music has participated in ideas, events and changes in society more widely.
-
Aural Skills
Aural Skills develops the skills necessary to receive, form, understand and use musical structures in your inner ear, thus giving your performance authentic power and expressive meaning.
Department Classes
And Activities
In addition to individual lessons, composers participate in the following activities:
Orchestration and Analysis
Developing skills in producing scores and performance parts to build confidence in adapting compositional processes to the
demands of different performance contexts.
Electronic Music and Creative Technology
The Academy has a wide range of Creative Technology facilities. These allow the composition, recording, editing and mixing of a wide range of musical styles to be done using professional-quality hardware and software. We have dedicated staff to teach you how to use it.
Composer Workshops
You will be given regular occasions to rehearse and record your work with talented Academy musicians in both studio and concert hall settings. There are many opportunities for student compositions to be played by orchestral and chamber ensembles both inside and outside the Academy.
Composition Concerts
Composer Platform concerts are given at the end of each term, both within the Academy and in external venues in London.
Commissions
Throughout the year, we offer a number of commissions to our composers to write for a wide variety of events with professional performers both within and outside the Academy. Recently, three of our composers wrote commissions for the annual Spitalfields Festival.
Seminar Series
This series underpins all composition studies and features guest composers such as Brian Eno, Simon Holt, Judith Weir, Beat Furrer, Martijn Padding, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, and Betsy Jolas.
Discovery events
Discovery Events are the perfect way to find out more about the Academy and whether it’s the right place for you.
