Majors
Contemporary Music Performance
Two study pathways are offered in Contemporary Music Performance. These innovative courses form the foundation of Otago's innovative programme in Contemporary Music and the Department is proud of the success achieved by many of the students who have taken them. Students have a choice of study between the song writing-orientated pathway and the one that specialises in instrumental technique with a view to becoming a freelance musician. Both of these options offer students a path of study that has been constructed by Department staff with backgrounds in the professional world of music making at the highest levels. Students are also able to combine study in Contemporary Music Performance with historical, analytical and cultural studies of music, providing a vital insight into the consumption and effect of popular music in contemporary societies.
Comtemporary Music Performance Major Requirements
Classical Music Performance
The Classical Music Performance programme develops performing potential through individual lessons and workshops under expert staff guidance. The Department of Music offers a supportive and inspirational environment in which individual instrumental or vocal technique and musical awareness are fostered and promoted. Many Classical Music performance students have achieved outstanding national and international success, based upon the foundations and mentoring offered by the classical performance staff. On offer is a broad spectrum of instrumental and vocal possibilities, with regular performance opportunities both within the University's public music programmes and beyond.
Classical Music Performance Major Requirements
Composition
A comprehensive training in Composition (including Music Technology and Song-Writing) to students at all levels of study. Broad-ranging in content, the Composition Major caters to all forms of musical creativity and music style. In the first year of study students may specialise in one area or mix different interests, such as Classical Music or Popular Music. In the following years, opportunities are made available for specialisation in writing for other media such as film, dance, television or theatre. There are no minimum entry requirements for the first-year composition papers, although students with little or no music reading ability are strongly encouraged to up-skill in the first semester.
Composition Major Requirements
Classical Music
The Classical Music Major is a specialized programme offered for students wishing to develop their historical, analytical and stylistic knowledge of western classical music from the 16th to 21st centuries. Students will acquire a high level of musical literacy as they undertake cumulative papers in the materials of music, as well as papers focussing on the social and historical and stylistic aspects of music. The programme has the flexibility to encompass a range of other subjects, while at the same time developing skills aimed at a deep intellectual and artistic engagement with classical music.
Classical Music Major Requirements
Popular Music
The Popular Music Major is an innovative programme for students interested in the diverse popular musics of the world and their cultural contexts. Suitable for students with or without a background in music performance, this Major allows for a flexible combination of papers in film music, world music, and cultural studies, as well as marketing and industry papers to equip our graduates with the practical skills necessary to enter the creative industries. Popular music is a contemporary phenomenon and Otago's Popular Music Major will provide you with the ability to critically evaluate its function in your everyday life and the world around you.
Popular Music Major Requirements
World Music
Otago offers a wide range of subjects covering diverse musics of the world. We examine the social and cultural meanings of any musical style of any culture, how to study music and the people performing it, how music fits into its cultural context, and specific music of Asian, Pacific, Latin American, and European cultures. We also offer students the chance to play Javanese gamelan (Indonesian percussion), Japanese koto (zither), and African drumming (djembe) as practical studies in ethnomusicology, either as stand alone papers or within a specific area study.
World Music Major Requirements
Music Studies
The Music Studies Major is the most flexible of the Music Majors. This Major is the least specialised and allows the student to structure their own course of papers. The student must take several required papers and in addition must take two further papers in Classical, World or Popular Music - one of which must be at third-year level. As well as its flexibility, the Music Studies Major will be useful to students who start a Performance or Composition Major but then decide not to go to third year in that discipline.
Music Studies Major Requirements
What's new?
Masters Degrees in Performance, Composition and Studio Production
Doctoral Degrees in Performance, Composition and Studio Production
Our newly appointed William Evans Lecturer in Cello, Heleen Du Plessis will be joining the Department in January 2010.
Gamelan Postgraduate Opportunities (pdf)
Study Gamelan
Indonesian percussion
18 point paper, whole year
No prior musical knowledge required