[timothy_selman]

Hi Guys, I thinking of doing a Bmus; is there anyone doing the course who could tell my what its like studying it? Oh and also i am a composer, what are the chances to get my compositions played?

[CalabiYau]

I'm a student in the Music Department. It is an absolutely brilliant department, and you will have a lot of opportunities to have your music played to large audiences in concerts organised by the university in our Sir Jack Lyons concert hall and the Rymer Auditorium. I recommend music at York wholeheartedly. There is a lot of modern and experimental work done here btw (electroacoustic, computer music, atonal, serialism, etc), but also a lot of emphasis seems to be on baroque and medieval music.

[timothy_selman]

Aah right ok whilst i see the cleverness in serialistic and tone row music, it doesnt really appeal to me in listening to it or composing it. Is this a bad thing if its one of the areas studied? Im trying to write choral music especially, but dramaticly failing to make it sound early! some of my compositions are on soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/timothy_selman could you give me any tips for improvement compositionally? What sort of groups are available to write for? At somepoint (when its finished, whichll probably be this summer) i want my symphony to be performed; but the first movement is quite big in the number of instruments used. Are there any orchestras big, or willing enough to play my orchestral peices?

[Nesselphie]

I am also a music student at York and there are so many opportunities to have work performed!

Music at York is amazing, you can pick from a huge range of projects and you can follow your interests, as well as trying new things. As a composer, people are always interested in performing your work!

[pandoram]

I'm not a music student but I'm in the music society (and the choir), and even as an outsider I can see loads of chances so I guess really there's no lack of opportunity..there are the music society's twice-weekly lunch-time concerts, to start with, and numerous instrumental/choral/musical/drama groups to write for. It's only the matter of getting in touch with them I suppose? But as others have said, the department is absolutely brilliant (which I can tell because Peter Seymour is!) so I don't think that'll be a problem.

There's the uni choir, the uni chamber choir, the 24 (a modern group), the gospel choir, and quite a few independent choral groups (can't remember them all..), and all sorts of orchestral ensembles. Otherwise, you can always get in touch with students in the department and/or music society members to put together a group for performance.

There might be a bit of focus on baroque/early music because the National Centre for Early Music happens to be in York but I don't see that ruling out any other kinds of music.