PhD Music (Musicology) / Overview

Our PhD Music (Musicology) programme will enable you to develop historical and/or analytical skills at an advanced level, with independence and originality of thought combined with technical skill.

Your supervised research will normally be related in some way to the research interests of a member of staff. These currently include but are not limited to:

* Early modern material culture and source studies * Early modern music theory and performing practices * Music and multimedia culture in early modern and Enlightenment England * Reception of early modern English music * Beethoven and his contemporaries * Music, politics and aesthetics in 19th-C Germany * Analysis and reception of 19th-C instrumental music * Music in 20th-century Russia and the Soviet Union * The 20th-century symphony * New music reception, historiography and methodology * Music in contemporary culture * Music of South Asia and the South Asian diaspora * Music of the Mediterranean, Balkans and Caucasus * Politics of world music * Music revivals in the 20th and 21st centuries * Theorising listening and listeners * Jazz performance and improvisation studies * Historical performance practice * Manuscript studies * Child composers

Our research across the department involves particular focus on eight core research areas , which are built around themes and topics that are of interest to a number of members of staff, who are able to bring contrasting perspectives and methodologies to solving shared problems within these themes because of their contrasting areas of specialism. These core research areas comprise:

* Creative and performing practices * Sound, space and interactive art * Politics, protest and power * Nationalism, mobility and identity * Historically and culturally informed analysis * Critical reception studies * Voice and vocality * Inter-cultural musicking

Musicologists and ethnomusicologists will produce an 80,000-word dissertation that presents independent and original research executed at a high standard.

You will be assigned a research panel consisting of your supervisor, a co-supervisor and advisor who will meet with you on a regular basis to monitor your progress.

Postgraduate students are expected to take part in the academic community of the department and the University by participating in seminars and presenting their research at regular intervals.

Find out more about our Music research , our staff and what our current PhD postgraduate research students are working on.

Find out what it's like to study at Manchester by visiting us on one of our  open days.