MA Arts and Culture: Music, Theatre and Performance Studies

This Master's programme offers two specializations: one in Popular Music, Sound and Media Cultures and another in Theatre, Culture and Media studies. Each specialization encompasses both emergent and historically established practices in music and theatre and the performing arts.

Within both the music and theatre specialization, we highlight those phenomena that most impact the organization, experience, and creative potential of music and theatre-makers and audiences in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. MA students examine the current constitution of music or theatre organizations, as well as the impact of broader processes such as globalization, digitalization, urbanization, festivalization, and mobility upon expanding forms of creativity. Because humans continue to shape creative experience within cultural fields, these two specializations aim to uncover how music or theatre remains relevant for understanding broader relations between culture, society, and the arts.

We examine these and other processes in historical contexts and in our musical and theatrical presentations, where the economic crisis in the recording and performing industries has led to vast rearrangements of musical and theatrical labour and changing conceptions of the public sphere. Because this program highlights the complexity of the contemporary popular music, art music, and theatre professional worlds, students enter arts professions with specialized knowledge and skills, which ensure that they are highly employable.

Why study this programme in Groningen?

Music Specialization

• Stimulating international student environment with lively music culture and prestigious popular music festivals
• Theoretically rigorous department working on the latest developments in music and sound cultures
• Wide range of courses on topics including globalization, populism, gender studies, ecocriticism, urban soundscapes, music theatre and performance, critical musicology, new media formats for classical music, and audio culture
• Team of motivated international staff members collaborating across national and disciplinary boundaries
• Additional lecture series (Music Matters), experimental vocal group, close ties to music institutions in the Netherlands and abroad

Theatre Specialization

• Multicultural urban environment with an international student community from over 120 countries
• Stimulating theatre scene and easy access to international theatre festivals, such as Oerol, Noorderzon, O. Festival, and Holland Festival
• Research culture distinguished by its commitment to academic excellence
• Inclusive teaching environment focusing on the co-creation of knowledge with our students
• Strong focus on the societal impact of theatre and the arts
• Combination of academic knowledge and theoretically informed practical experience
• Integrated internship programme in the cultural industry and expert supervision from arts professionals
• Extended international networks of staff and alumni of the programme

This Master's programme offers two specializations: one in Popular Music, Sound and Media Cultures and another in Theatre, Culture and Media studies. Each specialization encompasses both emergent and historically established practices in music and theatre and the performing arts.

These two specializations aim to uncover how music or theatre remain relevant for understanding broader relations between culture, society, and the arts. Our students examine artistic practices and expanding forms of creativity in response to global phenomena, such as environmental and economic crises, mediatization, urbanization, migration and mobility.

The study programme includes an internship in the music or theatre industry through our extended network of established Dutch and international arts and cultural institutions. Our students acquire specialized knowledge and skills, which ensure that they are highly employable in the professional arts and media sectors.

Music specialization

Courses

• Music and Globalization (alternates years) (5 EC)
• Sound, Technologies and Ideologies (alternates years) (5 EC)
• Music, Politics and Resistance (5EC)
• Gender and Sexuality in Popular Music (alternates years) (5 EC)
• Music Cultures, Place and Space (alternates years) (5 EC)
• Music, Theatre and Sound (5 EC)
• Visualizing the Classical Music Experience (5 EC)
• Rethinking the Classical Concert in the Digital Age (5 EC)
• Masters Thesis (20 EC)
• Music Internship (10 EC)

Theatre specialization

In the first semester, the students follow courses of 30 EC: 20 EC come from the theatre and performance track; the remaining 10 EC can be chosen from the other tracks within the Arts and Culture MA programme (Film and Audiovisual Media; Arts, Cognition and Criticism; Arts, Policy and Cultural Entrepreneurship). Our students are also allowed to take a small-group tutorial course in one of the areas of expertise of the academic staff. In the second semester, students write their MA thesis (20 EC) and undertake an internship/traineeship (10 EC). The internship can be replaced by a course or a tutorial.

Courses

• Performance Mediality and Materiality (5 EC)
• Dramaturgy (5 EC)
• Adaptation Theory and Practice (5EC)
• Music, Theatre and Sound (5 EC)
• Gender and Sexuality in Popular Music (5 EC)
• Classical Music in the Digital Age (5 EC)
• Music, Politics and Resistance (5 EC)
• Theatre Internship (10 EC)
• Master's Thesis (20 EC)

Study abroad

• Study abroad is optional
• Maximum of 30 EC

Job prospects

Music

Our students have found jobs in the music and cultural industries in the Netherlands and abroad. They are active as music programmers and cultural critics, festival and event organizers, project managers, journalists and policy advisors, content creators and coordinators, in music studios and marketing and as academics and cultural educators. They work in local, national, underground and international corporations such as: Universal Records, Warner Records, Eurosonic Noorderslag, Noorderzon Festival, Viacom CBS, XITE, Prins Bernard Cultuur Fonds, NPO Radio 1, Submarine Records, Subbacultcha, Guy and Roni Dance, Chordify, Best Kept Secret Festival, Mediamatic, Simplon, and Vera Music Venue Groningen.

Our students have also set up their own successful arts organisations, advice bureaus, or research institutions in the field of music, arts, culture, and event organisations. Students can also pursue an academic career with a PhD.

The internship, as an integral part of the program, prepares students well for a career in the cultural field. Students benefit from the excellent international networks for staff and alumni of the programme.

Theatre

Our graduates have pursued successful career paths in the theatre and cultural industries in the Netherlands and abroad. They are active as theatre programmers, critics, journalists, festival and event organizers, cultural project managers, policy advisors, content creators, and cultural educators. They work in local, national and international organizations such as the International Theatre Amsterdam, Spring Festival Utrecht, DeLaMar Theater as well as cultural departments and policy centres, like NGO Stichting Doen and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in The Hague. They have set up their own successful arts organizations, advice bureaus, or research institutions in the field of music, arts, culture, and event organizations. Students may also pursue an academic career with a PhD.