Conducting

We offer two postgraduate Conducting programmes which provide the comprehensive and integrated training required of a professional conductor. Taken over one year for PGDip, or two for progression to MMus, we usually accept just one student per year to allow for maximum performance opportunity. With 90 minutes on-to-one tuition each week, both programmes concentrate intensively on the technique and craft of conducting through a diverse ‘hands on’ experience with Conservatoire Orchestras, Opera Department and various ensembles and festivals.

Tuition is delivered by our in-house team of specialists and our visiting Conductors and Conducting Consultants including Stéphane Denève, Garry Walker, James Lowe, David Danzmayr, and Christophey Adey. Through these individual lessons you’ll develop perception, listening skills and self-awareness to become a responsive leader in rehearsal and performance.

Working with its professional orchestras, Glasgow has an outstanding team of young and inspiring conductors. Our excellent relationship with these orchestras affords unmatched opportunity for you to develop a mature musicality and professional outlook.

Programme content

We believe our Masters programme will refine and extend your specialised conducting skills, while maintaining the versatility needed to build a professional career. Together with the Conducting Programme Coordinator you’ll agree a learning contract which sets out a unique programme of study; including performance opportunities, elective options, and personal goals for the year ahead. We also encourage high levels of reflection enabling you to become independent learners and thoughtful, well-rounded musicians.

To achieve this our Masters programme is divided into Principal Study, Supporting Studies, and Integrative Studies, with the option to take a number of Electives allowing you to create your own individual style and personality.

Principal Study

Your Principal Study will enable you to develop technical and expressive mastery as a conductor. Ensuring you meet the demands of a conducting career, you’ll develop a firm but flexible and responsive conducting style that demonstrates musical individuality and technical assurance. You will move towards greater independence and self-reliance and will develop an ability to identify problems and solve them through preparation and rehearsal. During individual lessons, flexibility is encouraged and you may decide to have lessons with different teachers according to the demands of the repertoire and your own particular requirements.

Supporting Studies

Your Supporting Studies will provide a range of experiences and classes to support your Principal Study and develop a mature musical personality. This will include one-to-one coaching, performance classes, study of orchestral scores and instruments, sectional coaching, large scale production rehearsals, and full orchestral rehearsals. You’ll also observe and work with conductors in Conservatoire and professional rehearsals and performances.

Integrative Studies

Integrative Studies will focus on your approach to study, your interaction with peers and tutors and a reflection of development and next steps. Graduate seminars will therefore center on skills, techniques, and understandings that inform musical development and will incorporate the School’s diverse Research Colloquia, including a series of invited speakers on major artistic issues. In bringing the whole postgraduate cohort together, you will be able to explore individual areas of specialism within a wider musical and intellectual context. Based on these seminars you will contribute to online discussions and the following will be required for your work in general:

-          A Reflective Practice Journal of up to 4,000 words to focus on your working processes, showing a breadth and depth of reflection.

-          A Documentation Project focusing in detail on an aspect of your work which might include weekly recordings of music studied, annotated scores of a role learned, extracts from different editions consulted, discographies of recordings listened to, etc.

-          A Professional Portfolio to show your next anticipated steps following graduation.

Electives

There are a number of electives available which allow you to choose your own pathway through the Masters Programme. Some of these include Arts Administration and Management for Performers and Composers, Community Music, Introduction to Opera Directing, Introduction to Electroacoustic Composition, Music Pedagogy, Rehearsal Techniques and Directing, Sound Recording, and Ethnography of Performance.