(upbeat music)
- I wanted to experience music
from an academic perspective.
- I play in different concerts.
I also conduct and
compose in my spare time.
- For me, it was just the perfect balance
between a conservatoire
and an academic degree.
(lively music)
- At Cambridge, the course
involves a wide range
of different approaches to music.
Performance, composition,
historical musicology,
ethnomusicology, and music and science.
- In the first year, you
get a very broad overview
of Western art music and all the different
facets that play into it.
- By the second and the third year,
you can be studying
courses from all different
areas of music history,
from all around the world,
with a wide set of different approaches.
- Things like opera, like sound art,
music that we encounter every day,
hip hop, jazz, things like that,
that may not be obviously
part of the kind of canon
of European art music.
- One person could
specialise in performance,
another person could
specialise in history,
another in analysis,
another in ethnomusicology,
so that by the end of the degree,
what you've really got
is your degree in music.
(upbeat music)
- The modes of teaching on the course,
first of all, lectures.
But lectures are
supplemented by supervisions.
As well as those, we
have small group teaching
for subjects like aural
training, keyboard skills.
And we also have self-directed
study and practice.
- Here at the faculty,
there are really, really
first-rate resources.
- We have a concert hall,
500-seat concert hall.
We also have a recital room,
we have five lecture rooms.
- We also have grand pianos, Steinways,
to practice on,
harpsichords to practice on.
- There are huge
opportunities for performance,
world-class orchestras!
- From classical music and
chamber choirs and jazz ensembles
to ensembles that we
organise like the Indonesian
gamelan that we have, the
Javanese gamelan here.
- As a musician, you can literally hire
the chapel for free or
hire a hall for free
and just spend two
hours conducting pieces.
- I really like to dance, so for example,
I'm dancing in an
upcoming opera production.
- At the same time, a lot
of students may not actually
be interested in obvious
forms of musical performance,
and again, I think that's
something we're trying
to really cultivate and allow for.
- One approach that we
specialise in at Cambridge
is music and science,
which can be field work,
it can be lab-based experiments,
it can explore a wide range
of questions about music
that we can address from
scientific perspectives.
(contemplative music)
- We have a computer room,
and that comes with all
necessary softwares,
Logic Pro or Auralia or Sibelius,
and we also have a recording studio.
- You have your Director of Studies,
then you also have a tutor in College.
There was just so much support and so many
fail-safe nets in there.
- One of the good things
about the course here
is that it equips you
with all these skills
that you can then apply to
different related industries.
- There's performance,
there's composition,
we see students going into teaching music,
legal careers or careers in the church
or careers in the city,
whatever they happen to be,
and they're using the
analytical techniques,
or indeed, the argumentative techniques,
or indeed, the confidence they've got
from being performers or composers,
and taking that into a whole
range of different careers.
- If you are a rapper, if
you are a jazz musician,
we'd be thrilled to have you here.
That being said, also
for people who have spent
their lives making
Western classical music,
it's a really wonderful
programme and a way to deepen
your knowledge of how that music works.
- Give it a punt and go for it,
because it really is an amazing place.
- You have nothing to lose.
