MPhil / PhD
Research students play a vital role in the Music Department, pursuing projects closely related to areas of staff research, contributing to our concert programmes as composers and performers, and, in many cases, teaching on the undergraduate programmes. Several full-time research students in Music are funded by University Research Studentships, but we also support the work of a large number of part-time MPhil/PhD students.
Our postgraduate students' work tends to emphasise practice-based research in composition and performance, together with the study of various aesthetic and technical issues arising principally (but not exclusively) in the context of 20th Century music. In the past few years, for example, research students have successfully submitted theses in:
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Cryptograms in the music of Alban Berg (PhD)
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Audiovisual composition (PhD)
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Electroacoustic composition, in particular exploring spatialisation (PhD)
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Music in the poetry of T S Eliot (PhD)
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Time and eternity in Messiaen's Quatuour pour la Fin du Temps (PhD)
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Form in contemporary electro-acoustic composition (MPhil)
Ongoing MPhil/PhD research projects include work in the following areas:
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Performance practice of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto
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Composition for youth choirs
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Composition exploring elements of traditional Japanese music
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Popular music in the Jordanian national curriculum
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The role of Music in the care of people suffering from dementia
Our research students have gone on to successful careers lecturing in Higher Education, as researchers, and as composers both in the UK and overseas.
For full details of the University College's MPhil/PhD programme, its application and registration procedures, see the Graduate School's web site| . However, in all cases, it is recommended that those interested in pursuing research in the Music Department should, in the first instance, contact either Professor Grenville Hancox| or Professor Roderick Watkins|.
For further details of individual staff members' research interests and the areas in which they are willing to act as supervisors, please follow the links to individual staff profiles from the Staff page.