Music

Practical Music

Musical life at Fitzwilliam is active, varied and stimulating. There are opportunities for all students both to participate in and to listen to music of a high standard and in a diverse range of styles. Fitzwilliam College Music Society organises frequent concerts and provides musical opportunities for all members of the College, whatever their musical tastes or level of accomplishment. Fitzwilliam has a thriving Chapel Choir which performs concerts in Cambridge and further afield as well as singing regular Sunday services. Our musicians also regularly join with performers from nearby colleges in ensemble such as Orchestra on the Hill. Fitzwilliam is also home to two long-established a capella ensembles, Fitz Barbershop and The Sirens, and is the base for Fitzwilliam Chamber Opera, the only permanent collegiate opera group in Cambridge.

College music benefits greatly from the frequent involvement of professional musicians, particularly the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, who were founded at the College in 1969 and have since achieved an international reputation; the Quartet returns to College each term to give concerts and to work with student performers and ensembles. Their performances form part of Fitzwilliam Professional Recitals, an annual season of public concerts held in the College's Auditorium.

Distinguished Fitzwilliam music alumni include conductor David Atherton OBE, musicologists Professor Simon Keefe, Dr Alan Brown and Professor Mervyn Cooke, writer and broadcaster Humphrey Burton CBE, violinists Roger Garland and Nicholas Dowding, violist Martin Outram, bass Matthew Waldren, jazz pianist Colin Purbrook, opera director John Ramster, songwriter Nick Drake, composer Nicholas Marshall and recorder player John Turner.

Studying Music

Two students are normally admitted to read for the Music Tripos every year; an Organ Scholar (who may or may not read Music) is elected in every other year. Students reading Music are taught through formal lectures in the Music Faculty, and through Supervisions - held either on a one-to-one basis for subjects requiring individual attention (such as Harmony and Counterpoint), or in groups of two or three where broader discussion is beneficial (History, Analysis and so forth). These weekly sessions are designed to support and complement the lectures, and the Faculty also provides practical classes in Aural skills and Keyboard Harmony. The weekly sessions are organised and taught by a team of supervisors appointed by the Director of Studies in Music which may include a mixture of senior faculty members, external supervisors and postgraduate students whose area of research is related to the topic or paper being supervised. The College has a well-stocked collection of musical scores and textbooks in the Library.

    For details of the Music Tripos at Fitzwilliam, see /academic/courses/music
    The course structure can be found on the Music Faculty website at http://www.mus.cam.ac.uk/external/coursesapplications/undergradadmissions.html
    University-wide music scholarship information is at http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/musicawards/

Contact

For all enquiries about music at Fitzwilliam, please contact the Director of Music, Francis Knights, on music@fitz.cam.ac.uk or 01223 768463.