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Victorian College of the Arts

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Contemporary Music) is dedicated to providing students with the education and training needed to become a professional contemporary musician. The curriculum provides you with the opportunity to participate in an eclectic range of concerts, events and interactive projects reflecting our commitment to music making in a broad range of musical styles and media.

The course allows students to major in one of two areas:

• Contemporary Music Performance or;
• Interactive Composition.

Contemporary Music Performance

The Contemporary Music Performance major embraces improvisation in a diversity of music genres, including: jazz, world music, popular music, folk music, experimental, electronica, crossover music, a cappella and multimedia. The program balances the development of technical skills with creativity, and encourages the development of the personal voice through performance practice and original compositions.

Students will examine the skills individual performers require in the development of a range of repertoire and technical studies, ensemble performance and the theoretical and practical study of the harmonic, melodic, rhythmic and formal structures and process of Contemporary Music.

Students will also choose one elective per semester of study. Offerings include: Making Music for Film and Animation, The Laptop Recording Studio, Pop Song Writing, Creating Music for Advertising and Contemporary Composition Uncovered.

Detailed subject information is available in the University Handbook.

Graduates from the VCA's Contemporary Music program have worked with, or are members of: Gotye, Crowded House, The Bamboos, Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, Claire Bowditch and the New Slang, Australian Art Orchestra, Blue King Brown, Paul Kelly, Kylie Minogue, John Farnham, Kate Ceberano, James Morrison, Rene Geyer, and Archie Roach. They have also performed at international music festivals, including: Montreux Jazz Festival, Japan's Summersonic, Big Day Out, London Jazz Festival, East Coast Blues and Roots Festival, and Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

Interactive Composition

The Interactive Composition major focuses on commercially driven cross-art modes of composition, and may include writing music for events, film, television, animation, theatre, music theatre, dance, pop song, advertising, video gaming, online sites, installation art and sound design.

Students will learn the skills required to develop their craft in interactive music making, for composers to create new artistic work in group environments, and embrace the theoretical and practical study of the harmonic, melodic, rhythmic and formal structures and process of Contemporary Music.

Students will also choose one elective per semester of study. Offerings include: Making Music for Film and Animation, The Laptop Recording Studio, Pop Song Writing, Creating Music for Advertising and Afro-Latin American Percussion Ensemble.

The course is stylistically inclusive and encourages initiative, entrepreneurship and creative skills in a contemporary music-making context.

Detailed subject information is available in the University Handbook.

Studying composition at the University of Melbourne

Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music is a specialisation within the Melbourne Model Bachelor of Music. Instruction is grounded within the Western notated art music tradition, while also engaging in dialogue with other contemporary musical practices.

Interactive Composition at the VCA is a major within the BFA (Contemporary Music), focussing on commercially driven cross-art modes of composition.