Choral Conducting – MMus / PgDip

Designed for recent graduates and suitably qualified mature students, our taught Master of Music (MMus) and Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) Choral Conducting courses provide the technical training, collaborative opportunities and podium time necessary to help you prepare for a career as a professional conductor. Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is currently the most exciting destination for choral conductors, with an active recording and concert schedule.

Our established Choral Conducting specialism allows you to work with a dedicated chamber choir, rehearsing and performing a variety of works throughout your training. You’ll be offered tailored individual tuition from our principal conducting tutor Paul Spicer (Finzi Singers), and will also come into contact with Jeffrey Skidmore (Ex Cathedra) through the Conservatoire’s Chamber Choir.

You’ll work across the whole spectrum of the Conservatoire’s music making, from core contemporary repertoire and student composition projects, through the central romantic and classic masterpieces back to period performance techniques.

It’s normal for conducting students to be proactive in presenting performances of projects that they’ve generated themselves. You’ll receive support and professional advice in pursuing such projects, which should be viewed as an essential element of your studies. Both PgDip and MMus courses provide excellent opportunities to develop other skills relevant to a future career in the music profession.

You’ll have full access to our superb £57 million facilities, including our Concert Hall, 150-seat Recital Hall, our black box performance space known as The Lab, and more than 70 practice rooms, ensemble rooms and workshops; all acoustically designed to provide a music-making environment that is world class.

What’s covered in the course?

• Regular individual specialist tuition.
• Vocal lessons.
• Opportunities to join orchestral conducting classes.
• A dedicated chamber choir, ‘Camerata’, managed and nurtured by students on the course.
• Involvement in rehearsals of the Conservatoire’s highly acclaimed Chamber Choir, which has a regular and highly successful recording programme.
• Many other choral singing opportunities within the Conservatoire.
• Bespoke support classes in musicianship and repertoire.
• A core career development module designed to get you thinking about your future professional plans.
• The flexibility to choose from a broad menu of Professional Development Option modules designed to help you work towards achieving your personal career aspirations.
• In MMus, a core module designed to develop your skills as a researcher or informed practitioner.
• The possibility of transferring from PgDip to MMus once you have begun your studies (but before completion of the PgDip course).

Why Choose Us?

At Royal Birmingham Conservatoire we provide a friendly and supportive environment in which you can pursue your postgraduate studies. This is a time when you need to think particularly carefully and strategically about the direction of your developing career as a musician. We therefore encourage you to be ambitious in pursuing your aspirations, and endeavour to provide you with the flexibility to mould your course to your individual needs, both within your Principal Study area and in complementary modules.