Welcome to UCD School of Music
Music is fundamental to the human experience. We have yet to discover a society that does not have music: even where living resources are severely limited, people devote time and energy to music. One might wonder why this might be so, especially where scarce material resources are used to create music. At the UCD School of Music, we devote ourselves to the study of this quintessentially human expression in its many and diverse forms. We address such fundamental questions as what is music? How is it defined cross-culturally? How does music “work”? What can it express? What is its role in society, and how has it developed over time and in different cultures? Questions such as these are at the centre of study and research here at the UCD School of Music.
The School is a vibrant centre of research and teaching with a strong commitment to analysis, ethnomusicology, musicology, and performance studies as core specialisations. UCD's first Chair of Music was created in 1914, and ever since the School has contributed very significantly to musical life and musical scholarship in Dublin and in Ireland as a whole. Currently the School comprises six full-time academics who represent a broad range of research interests including Irish cultural history, medieval music (particularly that of Ireland), nineteenth and twentieth-century music, music theory and analysis, African American music, and South Indian music.
Undergraduate students can study music as part of the Bachelor of Arts programme or, from September 2010, opt for the BMus. Our postgraduate programmes include the Master in Musicology (with a choice of two streams: Historical Musicology or Ethnomusicology), the Master of Literature, and the Doctor of Philosophy. A degree in music offers a wide range of possibilities for a future career: our former students are working in the areas of teaching, journalism, arts administration, music technology and in the publishing and recording industries. Others are currently pursuing graduate studies in the universities of Cambridge, London, Munich and Harvard.
Performance Studies constitute an important part of our activities. The UCD Symphony Orchestra, the UCD Choral Scholars, the UCD Philharmonic Choir and the UCD Baroque Orchestra are all part of the School and students of all subjects and programmes are invited to join these ensembles. Concerts in recent years have included symphonies by Shostakovich (No. 5) and Sibelius (No. 2), Fauré’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B minor. All ensembles are part of the Horizons programme; by choosing them as elective modules, students can obtain credit for their participation.
The School of Music hosted three major international conferences last year: the 15th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-century Music (June 2008), the very first time that it came Ireland; the first annual conference of the Internaional Council for Traditional Music, Ireland (February 2009); and the first international conference on the eminent Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick (June 2009). In addition, the School contributed significantly to a collaborative conference co-organised by the Society for Musicology in Ireland and the Royal Musical Association (July 2009). All conferences were accompanied by concerts.
We will continue this activity this year by hosting a one-day symposium to mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of James McKinnon’s The Advent Project. Presented jointly by the UCD School of Music and the Faculty of Theology, Pontifical University, Maynooth, the symposium should generate a fruitful dialogue between Medieval Musicology and Medieval Liturgical Studies, and has been generously funded by the UCD Humanities Institute of Ireland and the Pontifical University, Maynooth.. The title of the symposium, which will be held in the seminar room of the Humanities Institute of Ireland on Friday, 19 February 2010 is ‘The Advent Project – Ten Years on: Early Medieval Chant and Ritual in Rome’. The main speakers will be Prof. Susan Rankin, Professor of Medieval Music, University of Cambridge; Prof. Joseph Dyer, Professor Emeritus of Music History, University of Massachussetts, Boston; Dr John Romano, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA.
You will find more information on our graduate and undergraduate programmes, modules, staff, concerts and other events on our webpages. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact music@ucd.ie. We warmly invite you to join us and attend our public lectures, seminars and concerts.
Dr Thérèse Smith
Head of School
