Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover

Regular course length 4 semesters
Course leading to the degree of Master of Music in Church Music (Protestant or Catholic)

The Master’s degree course in Church Music offers comprehensive opportunities to add greater depth to the knowledge they have gained while studying for the Bachelor’s degree. The traditional wide diversity of subjects taught in a course in Church Music is maintained, so that graduates will afterwards be eligible for appointment to a prominent position in the world of church music. On the other hand, students are able, and indeed are explicitly encouraged, to adjust the emphasis placed on the individual disciplines in such a way as to develop an individual personality profile of their own.

Course content and objective
In the Master’s degree course in Church Music the focus is on developing individual skills in practical artistic activities and in developing one’s field of work on one’s own responsibility. Accordingly, areas already covered in the first degree course are largely excluded from the curriculum, which is thereby so boiled down as to leave plenty of room for the pursuit of these aims. Graduates will be in a position to present and communicate forms of musical interpretation, creativity and improvisation in the public domain on their own initiative.

Accordingly, a large part of the course consists of individual artistic tuition, while also providing for training in greater depth in competence in musical outreach (instrumental and singing teaching, musical work with children). Concert and concert-like situations occupy a position of priority in the course. The musical project that takes the place of a Master’s dissertation brings together practical artistic and theoretical academic components.

Tuition
Individual artistic tuition in the principal instrumental study subject, Organ literature performance, is dependent on the availability of a large variety of different instruments matching the different schools and styles of composition. This requires a large degree of flexibility in the tuition venues. Thanks to the different types of organ available in the surrounding area, the HMTMH is able to offer very good and diverse opportunities for this. Thus the student is able to try out and to gain direct and authentic experience of the specific performance styles that make up the course content.

In the subject Accompanying congregational singing/Improvisation, close contact is sought to the Master’s degree courses in Composition and in JazzRockPop.

Tuition in choral and orchestral conducting is given in specialist courses in these subjects that are also attended by students from other study programmes such as Conducting: thus Church Music students too are offered a wide range of opportunities to gain practical experience with vocal and instrumental groups of varying compositions, and consequently a enjoy wealth of possibilities for developing their individual talents. The same applies to the conducting of children’s choirs.

Requirements for admission
The Master’s degree course in Church Music is conceived exclusively as a second degree course for students who have obtained a good Bachelor of Music degree in Church Music (Protestant or Catholic): students whose grades in the three subjects Organ literature performance, Accompanying congregational singing/ Improvisation and Choral and orchestral conducting in the final examination for that degree do not add up to more than 5.3 may be accepted for the Master’s degree course.

Career outlook
The degree of Master of Music in Church Music (Protestant or Catholic) opens the way for appointment to a prominent position as a church musician (previously known as an “A” post). In addition, thanks to the wide range of areas that graduates have achieved qualification in, the Master’s degree in Church Music will enable them to pursue many other kinds of career as professional musicians.