News archive 2001

King's and the BBC Proms collaborate in a new degree course

25 Apr 2001, PR 02/01

King's and the BBC Proms collaborate in a new degree course Called MA in Visual & Performing Arts: Promenade Concerts.

This new course will focus on the history of the Proms season. The core course is comprised of two parts. The first is a study of how the Proms were founded by Robert Newman and Sir Henry Wood and how their purpose and content has changed since the late 19th century. The other will reflect the themes of this year's Proms, Pastoral and Exile, with seminars investigating specific musical subjects around this theme. Additional modules will study the topics of opera and the symphony in depth, with reference to works performed at the Proms, and a course on music criticism will involve students writing reviews of the concerts they attend and discussing their work with professional music critics. Students taking the course will receive a Promming Season Ticket for all the Prom concerts at the Royal Albert Hall as well as being able to attend rehearsals. They will have the opportunity to talk with the management team of the Proms and those responsible for the radio and television coverage. Teaching will be undertaken by members of the King's Department of Music and guest seminars will be held by Proms artists and composers. The MA course will be taken part-time over two summers from July to September and a further three months from October to December for the writing of a dissertation. Awards at Certificate and Diploma level are also available. John Deathridge, King Edward Professor of Music and Head of the Department of Music at King's College London, said of the new course, "This offers students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study music at an advanced level in the context of two world-class institutions devoted to scholarship and live music." Nicholas Kenyon, Controller, BBC Proms, said, "We are delighted that the cultural importance of the Proms over a century and more as one of the world's leading music festivals is acknowledged by the setting up of this special course."



Notes to editors

King's College London
King's College London is one of the two oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with some 12,200 undergraduate students and over 4,100 postgraduates in ten schools of study. The College is among the country's top four higher education institutions for the number of highest-rated subject-areas for research quality. It is in the top group of five universities for research earnings and has an annual turnover of £285 million and research income from grants and contracts in excess of £80 million (1999-2000).





MA in Visual & Performing Arts: Promenade Concerts For more information about the course please contact Daniel Chua, Programme Co-ordinator in the Department of Music on 020-7848 2384 or email daniel.chua@kcl.ac.uk. The deadline for applications is the end of June.


Applicants will need to have a good honours degree though not necessarily in music. The Department of Music Since its foundation in 1964 by the noted scholar and performer, Thurston Dart, formerly Professor of Music at Cambridge and the first King Edward Professor at King's, the Department has led developments in postgraduate music education in the UK, including the first Masters course in Theory and Analysis. The Department's research interests are wide, ranging from library-based scholarship, performance and composition to electronic engineering. Recent developments include the foundation of the Chair in Performance Studies (currently held by Laurence Dreyfus) and the Henry Purcell Chair of Musical Composition (held by Sir Harrison Birtwistle CH). The Department currently houses a nationally funded project on lute music and is a major partner in an internationally funded project on Music Information Retrieval with the College's Departments of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.



The Department is one of the largest for musical research in the country with almost 40 postgraduate students and possesses its own research centre: the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies. It received the top ranking in both the 1992 and 1996 Research Assessment Exercises and was awarded an 'excellent' for its teaching by the Higher Education Funding Council. In the last decade it has developed particularly close links with the Royal Academy of Music. The undergraduate degree (BMus) emphasises both theory and performance with students having the unique opportunity to undertake individual lessons at the Royal Academy of Music. Degrees with German and Computer Science are also offered. There are currently about 120 undergraduates.





Further information
Public Relations Department
Email:rmelanie.gardner@kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7848 3073

Next:
Top teaching score for Philosophy
Research ratings improve at King's
Herbert Smith donation to King’s new library
Geoff Hoon delivers major speech at King's
Top teaching score for War Studies Group

Previous:
Double success for young King's chemist
First UK Chair in Medicine and the Arts
SRIF win for Kings
A world view of imprisonment - new findings published
Need an expert quickly? Deadlines approaching?


This information is provided by the Public Relations Department
Tel: 020-7848 3202  Fax: 020-7848 3739  Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk