Music Department ranked second in the country for research:

Birmingham's Music Department was ranked joint second out of all the country's 53 Music departments in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.

The work of all staff was returned for the RAE and a full 50% of our work was judged 'world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour'; a further 35% was judged 'internationally excellent'. This follows our top ranking of 5* in the 2001 RAE.

More information, including the RAE highlights for the University of Birmingham

• The Barber Institute of Fine Arts with its award-winning art gallery and concert hall forms the heart of the Music Department.
• The Music Library is one of the best in the country, with Special Collections centred on 20th-century English music (including Elgar - diaries, manuscript scores and early editions) and Baroque music.
• The Department enjoys close relations with the Birmingham Conservatoire , where many University students receive their practical tuition.
• We offer all undergraduates a generous programme of fully-funded lessons on two instruments. See Performance module details.
• The Centre for Early Music Performance and Research (CEMPR), which owns a large collection of reproduction early instruments, offers practical tuition in early instrumental and vocal techniques. The Department helps to organise the Birmingham Early Music Festival (BEMF).
• The University has two symphony orchestras, choirs and many other ensembles, run by the Department and the University Music Society.
• The Electroacoustic Music Studios and Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST) are world leaders in electronic composition and sound diffusion.
• The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is the Department's 'Ensemble in Association', allowing undergraduate and postgraduate composers opportunities to hear their works performed by top-class professionals.
• Notable graduates include conductor Sir Edward Downes, Composers John Casken, Jonathan Goldstein and Peter Wishart; Singers Natasha Marsh, Geraldine McGreevy, Diana Moore, Susan Parry, Carolyn Sampson and Richard Wistreich; instrumentalists Ian Hockley and Emma Murphy; opera producers Michael McCarthy and John La Bouchardière; musicologists Donald Burrows, Tim Carter, Ian Fenlon, Elaine Gould and Alison Latham; Elaine Padmore, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House; Richard King, Managing Director of Faber Music; and Colin Lawson, Director of the Royal College of Music.
• Numerous former students have been awarded teaching positions at institutions internationally and throughout the U.K., including at Harvard University, the University of Manchester, the University of Sheffield, Edinburgh University, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, the University of Malaysia, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and many more.

For full details of our undergraduate programmes (including module descriptions) see here.