MA Jazz

Take your artistry to an advanced level in our course offering specialist tuition with renowned industry professionals, career development training and College-based and professional performance opportunities.

Your training incorporates one-to-one lessons with some of the UK’s best jazz musicians, as well as advanced classes in music preparation, specialist listening and analysis classes and professional ensemble coaching.

You can study any of these instruments as part of your course:

• Bass
• Drums
• Flute
• Guitar
• Harp
• Piano
• Saxophone
• Trombone
• Trumpet
• Voice

You can then put your skills into practice through performances held during class or as part of the busy schedule of events we hold each year – such as the weekly student-led JazzTime sessions and our summer jazz festival.

Through our strong ties with the local, regional and national jazz scenes, opportunities to perform in professional tours and festivals are also open to you as a student here.

Over the course of your study, you’ll build your technical expertise and creative, interpretive and improvisation skills to become an artist with musical individuality and a mature stylistic authority.

• To prepare you for professional life, your training will be both rigorous and comprehensive – it includes a mix of one-to-one lessons (which we call ‘principal study’), lectures, seminars, ensemble work, performance classes, masterclasses and technical skills classes.
  
• You’ll have classes in music preparation – including composition and arrangement – as well specialist listening and analysis classes, such as jazz transcription and critical writing. Training in performance analysis and presentation also forms part of your study.
• Our impressive list of tutors includes some of the UK’s leading jazz artists, all of whom are practicing contemporary jazz composers and renowned instrumentalists/vocalists. They offer you not only first-rate individual teaching, but ensemble coaching, group teaching, mentorship and networking opportunities.
  
• In your performance classes, you’ll receive constructive feedback from your tutors and your fellow students – and this verbal feedback is crucial to your development as an artist.
  
• We’re an integral player in the local, regional and national jazz scenes (which include educational providers). And our links with industry inform our training, making sure it’s fit for purpose, and create performing and placement opportunities for our students.
• Every year, renowned artists from around the world visit the College to perform – but they also hold masterclasses with our students, offering them insight into the industry and guidance on taking their skills to a higher level.
• You’ll have classes in career development, self-promotion and event management, helping to make you a more employable musician.
• You have the option to take on a self-directed vocational project based on your interests, which will expand your professional skills and experience.