Music (Musicology) MusM

Year of entry: 2025

Course length: 12 months Full-Time | 24 Months Part-Time

About the course

This course offers an engaging and rigorous master’s level in musicology. With a strong focus on theory, methodology and current debates in the discipline, together with appropriate research techniques and presentational styles, it offers excellent preparation for doctoral study and also for a wide range of careers.

The taught units encompass a wide range of topics and approaches, including:

Music Criticism and Hermeneutics
Music Theory and Analysis
Digital Research Skills for Music
Music and Politics
Source Studies and Performance Practice
Postcolonial Theory and Ecomusicology
Gender and Queer Theory
Popular Music Studies
Pedagogical Practice
Ethnomusicology and World Music Cultures

These are example topics and approaches based on 2024/25 options and are subject to change each year.

Find out more >

Where will your degree take you?

Our graduates have pursued successful careers in musical and non-musical fields. Some continue to further study via a PhD before securing an academic position. Some go on to teach in schools or further education, both in the UK and overseas.

Other areas of work for which advanced musical training has been directly relevant include: arts management and the culture industries, producing, music publishing, music, journalism, librarianship, music therapy, and performance. Careers outside of music have included: accountancy, law, social work, and human resources.

Some graduates have gone on to work for companies that include The Old Vic, NHS, Orchestras Live, and BBC.

Watch recent performances by MusM students on the Music Department's YouTube channel >

Prof Rebecca Herissone

Professor of Musicology

Prof Rebecca Herissone is a Professor of Musicology. She was made a Fellow of The British Academy in 2019, one of the highest distinctions in the humanities. Her specialisms include: Purcell and seventeenth-century English music; Creativity in Early Modern Music; Early Modern Manuscript and Print Cultures; Ontological Issues Relating to Baroque Music; Baroque Performance Practice; and English Music Theory 1580-1730.

Oscar Artacho Esplugues

MusM Musicology Graduate

I chose to study MusM Musicology as I was eager for a new challenge and to learn more about music. I currently work as a Music Educator, and the master’s has helped me go into more depth with my teaching because of modules like Historical and Contemporary Performance and Case Studies in Musicology. During my time as a student, I led the cello section of the Manchester University Symphony Orchestra and organised an international tour to Belgium in my role as the Tour Manager and Postgraduate Liaison. This taught me a lot about organisation, running a music trip and was one of my favourite things I did at uni.