The course is a perfect blend of music and theatre with a strong emphasis on performance. It is designed to train musicians and performers in a mixture of academic, creative and practical skills, to instil broad and specialist knowledge and understanding of musical and theatrical repertories, and to develop students as independent critical thinkers. In theatre you will develop your own creative work, experiment with devising performance work from scratch and explore and develop playwriting and directing skills. You will also be encouraged to venture beyond the artistic and understand how producers, marketing managers and artistic directors work within the industry and explore community theatre and practice on a local and international level.

At Bangor you will be part of a thriving music and performance community, performing and attending music and theatrical performances at Powis Hall, John Phillips Theatre and the magnificent Prichard-Jones Hall. You will enjoy unrivalled facilities in our arts and innovation centre, Pontio, which includes a Studio Theatre for performance with technical support from industry professionals. Pontio also features the 450-seat Theatre Bryn Terfel which regularly attracts world-class theatre productions and musical events. You will also benefit from Bangor’s close links with local and national theatre companies, and music and theatre practitioners who regularly visit and offer workshops and masterclasses.

Why choose Bangor University for this course?

• 6th in the UK for Overall Student Satisfaction in Music, 1st in Wales (NSS 2020).
• Music and theatre making community: choirs, orchestras, bands, student ensembles, drama and musical theatre societies, opportunities to perform and collaborate with local and national practitioners.
• Two Music buildings, two professional concert halls, soundproofed practice suite, four state-of the-art electroacoustic studios, two professional theatre studios and large proscenium arch stage.
• Strong links with professional companies and practitioners on a local, national and international level.

Your Music with Theatre and Performance degree programme at Bangor is flexible: you will shape your degree course to reflect your interests and strengths. In Music you will begin your studies in a genuinely all-embracing way, engaging with musical theory and practice from modal polyphony to electroacoustic composition, via every genre in between. You will use this broad framework as a launch pad for developing your own expertise in one of several fields of musicology, performance or composition, including 20th-century music, classical performance, editing, music in health and well-being, and all styles of composition. In Theatre and Performance, you will learn through practical exploration and critical analysis, with the opportunity to bring ideas and performances to life and explore the relevance of theatre and performance in today’s society. There will be opportunities to collaborate and work individually on a range of different techniques and genres. A broad spectrum of performance is explored and innovation within performance allowing you to question how we can continue to reinvent performance into the future.

Teaching is primarily carried out in small groups, providing a stimulating and supportive learning environment. You will have around 12 hours of lectures, seminars and tutorials each week. Solo Performance is taught through an innovative combination of individual tuition, workshops and masterclasses. In addition, you will spend time on background reading, listening to music, completing essays and coursework and preparing for seminars as well as rehearsing and performing in ensembles, choirs and orchestras. Several modules may include field trips, for example to concerts, archives, recording studios and composition workshops. We have excellent links with leading organisations in the UK, including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (with whom we have an annual composition workshop), the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Sain (Records) etc. Others involve short placements outside the University (for example, the Community Arts Placement module). You will also spend either one-third or two-thirds of your final year working on independent, supervised music projects. With theatre there are weekly practical workshops to practically explore and put into practice what is discussed in the more structured seminars. Guest practitioners and artists often host workshops. You are encouraged to read a variety of theatrical texts and watch a range of live and recorded performances. In your final year there is an opportunity to work independently on a creative dissertation as well as creating and partaking in a performance at Pontio Arts Centre.

Employment prospects are excellent, with a wide range of career options available. Our graduates have gone on to work in a range of roles, including: music and drama performance; work in the theatre (both on and behind the stage); work in media and recording companies; creative writing; professional writing and publishing; composition; acting and presenting. Many graduates choose to become music or drama teachers at all educational levels, others take up administrative posts with orchestras, theatre companies, opera houses or arts centres.

If you have a passion for music, our BA Music and BMus Music will offer you the opportunity to engage with that passion and develop it into a professional career that you can follow for many years to come.