Music

The Music Department invites applications for October 2019 entry to its PhD programme.

Our research was rated 1st in the UK in the Guardian’s analysis of the last Research Excellence Framework, and 8th in the Times Higher Education table.

We have a wide range of expertise, from music of the medieval period to the present day including film music, electronic music and non-Western music. Specialisms in the Music Department cover historical musicology, the social and cultural study of music, music analysis, editing, performance practice, iconography, ethnomusicology, music and literature studies and musical acoustics.

For further details of staff and student research interests see: http://fass.open.ac.uk/music/people and http://fass.open.ac.uk/music/research-degree

Studentships

Successful applicants to the Music PhD programme will have the opportunity to apply for an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC studentship. Awards for UK residents cover all tuition fees and provide a maintenance grant at the standard RCUK rate (£14,777 p.a. in 2018/19). Awards for students ordinarily resident in an EU country other than the UK are fees-only.

Open-Oxford-Cambridge is an exciting new doctoral training partnership, funded by the AHRC. The three participating universities share extensive expertise in delivering successful doctoral training, developed in collaboration with our students and a wide range of non-HEI partners. For more information about the Open-Oxford-Cambridge partnership, please visit http://www.oocdtp.ac.uk.

How to apply

Informal enquiries about studentships and PhD studies in Music should be made to Helen Coffey (helen.coffey@open.ac.uk) in the first instance. Potential applicants are encouraged to e-mail a draft research proposal at least one month before the deadline.

Further details of PhD studentships at the OU and the application process can be found here: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BNZ869/open-university-ahrc-phd-studentships.

Initially, applications for studentships will be assessed for a place on the Music PhD programme. Successful applicants will then be forwarded to studentship panels for further assessment and ranking.

Please note that the deadline for all postgraduate research degree applications, including for studentships, is noon 11 January 2019.

This week saw the launch of ConductIT – an EU funded project to build an open access MOOC on conducting. As an ERASMUS+ strategic partnership, ConductIT will develop an innovative online and distance-learning approach to teaching a subject that is fundamentally practical. We in the OU music department will have a primarily advisory role, but OU students will ultimately benefit from being able to access the MOOC once it goes live in two years’ time. Any musician who has had to lead an ensemble, whether at the level of a local church choir, school wind band or even a semi-professional orchestra will be able to develop their knowledge and understanding of conducting from a theoretical, philosophical and practical point of view by studying the MOOC at their own pace.

The port of Stavanger, Norway

The launch meeting was hosted by the lead institute, the University of Stavanger, and was attended by representatives from all the partners in the project – the Royal Northern College of Music, the Universidade de Aveiro and the Open University music department. A ConductIT website will be available soon so that news about the project can be disseminated more widely. We are delighted to be part of this venture and we look forward to sharing its benefits with our global community of students as it develops over the next three years.