Music student at the University of Melbourne (Image: VCA & MCM)
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (MCM) boasts the most comprehensive range of music courses in Australia, an offering which will be enhanced next year by new specialisations as part of its Bachelor of Music program.
Professor Gary McPherson, Director of the MCM, said the new specialisation system was a response to considerable competition both nationally and internationally.
Students can already choose to specialise in Music Performance, Composition and Musicology/Ethnomusicology but in the 2016 intake, they will also have the option of Jazz & Improvisation or Interactive Composition as two new specialisations. These two specialisations currently sit within the BFA (Contemporary Music) at the Victorian College of Arts (VCA) but will move across to the MCM, broadening the range available to musicians-in-training.
‘Tertiary music courses in some conservatoriums can have pretty locked down curriculums – there’s not a lot of choice,’ said McPherson.
‘We are trying to get away from that model, where in the Conservatorium right now we are reducing the number of core subjects, so that students can have more flexibility,’ said McPherson.
The Jazz & Improvisation specialisation will let the students craft a personal voice, develop advanced technical skills through contemporary performance practice and the creation of original compositions, all the while embracing the music traditions of Australian indigenous, non-western, European and African-American jazz.
‘To make our graduating musicians leaders in their field, we have to give them a course where they can really learn, progress and specialise in the things they are most interested in,’ said McPherson.
Interactive Composition is a specialisation that will work closely with all creative disciplines of the VCA & MCM, focusing on commercially driven cross-art modes of composition – for events, film, television, animation, theatre, music theatre, dance, pop music, advertising, video gaming, online sites, installation art and sound design.
McPherson said that the new curriculum would ‘strengthen the students’ developmental pathways’.
‘We want them to become the musician that they aspire to become,’ he said.
To learn more about the new BMus at the MCM, go to their website.
