Composition (MMus) MMus

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Our context is the contemporary international scene and our composers share some of the best facilities in Europe with their performing contemporaries. Our critically acclaimed annual festival, Plug, has become a renowned platform for new work and this year includes exciting collaborations with the Paris Conservatoire.

Professional groups, including Red Note and Hebrides Ensemble, have also premiered over 30 student compositions as part of our ongoing public masterclass programme. As a student composer you’ll also benefit from our excellent cohort of student performers. Capable of a range of professional performance, you won’t be limited to composing in a certain way for certain types of players, but will be free to develop your own compositional ideas.

We offer high contact time of 90 minutes one-to-one tuition each week. As working artists with various areas of expertise, our tutors bring live projects into lessons helping you to explore your own compositional voice. Together with your tutor your end of year portfolio will be negotiated, not prescribed. Every student embarks on their own learning journey; you can pursue a second study, work in the superb electroacoustic and recording studios, or devise new work in our purpose-built performance venues.

There’s also a real sense of a community among our students, staff and PhD cohort. The Composers Forum meets every Thursday and might include visiting composers and poets or perhaps a chance to discuss your work. Involving the full department, it’s an opportunity to listen to styles of music which you may not have heard or considered before and can help to challenge the orthodoxy and even your own ideas. You may also discuss work by PhD students who are engaged in larger works not experienced in earlier years of study. Our students have also set up their own Composers Collective which meets every two weeks to discuss different musical influences. Composition can be a solitary existence and at the Royal Conservatoire we develop the skills to work with other artists.

One of the best things about the Royal Conservatoire is our creative diversity, not just among musicians but across the whole institution. Due to differing artistic influences our students have developed a number of stand-alone projects in dance, theatre, film, and musical theatre. Different work in a range of different contexts makes us exciting and continually challenges our work. As Scotland’s national conservatoire we’re also approached countrywide with requests for new commissions and students often arrange their own performances of new work across Glasgow’s vibrant city centre.

By studying here you’ll be working with our diverse and talented performing community and will enjoy outstanding facilities and professional partnerships. Creative artists create because they have something in them they want to say. At the Royal Conservatoire we not only help you do that but also prepare you for the realities of professional life.

Please note, the international deadline for this programme is the 1st December 2023, but we would encourage applicants to apply by the 2nd October 2023 to be guaranteed consideration for the first round of scholarship.