Composition (Film, Gaming, Media) with Foundation

BMus (Hons) Composition (Film, Gaming, Media) is a creative, innovative, forward-looking course that focuses on the junction between composition, orchestration, and music production; the three vital disciplines that contemporary composers need to master. Joining tradition and innovation is at the heart of our course, which provides technical skills, artistic ideas, and openness towards a variety of musical applications.

In line with today’s creative industries, our BMus (Hons) Composition (Film, Gaming, Media) course enables an exploration of compositional tools and aesthetics within a variety of media, for instance:

• live performance
• music for film and visual media
• interactive gaming
• sampling
• production music.

These applications represent some of the most significant routes contemporary composers take in their professional lives and are intended to directly bridge your studies with real-world opportunities.

The curriculum allows you to develop the musical and technological literacy required within today’s creative industries, making music through real orchestral instruments, new digital sounds, and original production projects. The course is driven by the joy of creating music in imaginative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary ways.

Our teaching staff features award-winning composers with international profiles and extraordinary experience in concert, film, video game, and stage music. Our alumni include successful composers, orchestrators, arrangers, producers, teachers and researchers.

What you'll study

The BMus (Hons) Composition (Film, Gaming, Media) course is designed around today’s creative industries and aims to equip you with the practical and theoretical tools needed for a successful career in the creative arts. We consider composition as a platform for both artistic and entrepreneurial expression, without genre restrictions.

Across the duration of your studies, you will explore a significant variety of styles, ideas and aesthetics, from Beethoven to Zimmer, from impressionism to minimalism, from orchestral music to synthesisers.

You will also engage with practices that are relevant to contemporary music making, including:

• designing musical material
• recording techniques
• digital orchestration
• music for visual media
• arranging for real-world situations
• interactive video game scoring.

Our teaching staff features award-winning composers of international acclaim, Grammy Award-winning honorary Professors, and a wide variety of visiting artists, who regularly deliver seminars and workshops aimed at both presenting new cutting-edge works and working closely with students on their own compositions.

These experts will provide you with industry insights, current working practices, research-informed knowledge, and vital networking opportunities – particularly through our well-known Composers’ Workshop programme, which offers the opportunity to meet, discover, and collaborate with some of today’s leading composers, musicians and academics.

Foundation Year

The foundation year course is designed to equip you with the skills and knowledge you need to continue onto your Honours degree. You will study a range of subjects that will underpin your future study and also gain valuable experience of university life, with full access to campus facilities. Successful completion of the year allows you to progress straight onto Level 4 of this course.