An Overview
Designed for students interested in furthering their development in jazz at postgraduate level, this specialist pathway is led by internationally renowned jazz saxophonist and composer (and Head of the Jazz BMus pathway) Professor Tommy Smith OBE, offering bespoke tuition from some of the best jazz musicians and educators in Scotland.
We offer one-to-one lessons per week on your principal study instrument, allowing you to maximise your instrumental skills and potential.
In addition to this we also offer second study modules should you have an interest in developing a second instrument with an additional session of one-to-one tuition per week.
Our MMus Jazz pathway is designed to accommodate both jazz performers and jazz writer/arrangers. The course is highly bespoke and you will have a large amount of control in the way that your studies are structured.
This programme is tailored to fit individual needs and requirements, allowing the student to focus on preferred areas of interest and specialism.
As the MMus Jazz pathway is still relatively young, there’s a lot of focus on the department and this offers many opportunities for jazz students to perform both inside and outside of the institution and for writer/arrangers to have their compositions and arrangements performed.
The jazz scene in Glasgow and Scotland is thriving and there are many performance opportunities both within the Conservatoire and without – our students have negotiated many external performance opportunities in surrounding venues which means there’s live music happening almost every night of the week.
We also run a regular “Blue Mondays” concert series which features students and tutors or guest performers in the very popular “Ledger Room” public concert space within the RCS which provides excellent exposure and experience for all our students on a regular basis.
Past guest artists that have appeared in Blue Mondays concerts with our students include Randy Brecker, Bill Evans, Jacqui Dankworth, Peter Erskine, Paolo Fresu and Arild Andersen. Other masterclasses have featured Courtney Pine, Makoto Ozone, David Liebman and Branford Marsalis. Students have seen these great musicians up close, working with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, in the RCS.