Why Music Studies at the UvA?

• Choose your own study path

Specialise in historical, cultural or cognitive musicology, or a combination of the three, allowing you to tailor a study path that reflects your own interests.

• Global musical perspectives

Engage with music from the Middle East, Europe and North America, South Africa, Indonesia and global jazz and pop.

• Interdisciplinary expertise

Connect musicology with historiography, postcolonial theory, philosophy, psychology, neurobiology and computational science.

• Research skills and practical experience

Develop advanced research skills and gain hands-on experience through internships with ensembles, venues and festivals in Amsterdam and across the Netherlands

Is Music Studies right for you?

• You want to investigate how music works, what it means, and how it shapes the societies in which it sounds.
• You are interested in diverse musics such as musical traditions from the Middle East, European and North American art music traditions of the past two centuries, South African music, Indonesian music and jazz worldwide.
• You want to familiarise yourself with historiography, cognitive science, postcolonial theory, computation, ethnography, or philosophy, and relate or combine these intellectual frameworks in your studies of music.
• You would like to be part of a student community that brings a rich variety of musical backgrounds and perspectives into the classroom.

Degree certificate

Music Studies is an accredited degree programme of Arts and Culture. After successful completion of this programme, you will receive a legally accredited Master’s degree in Arts and Culture and the title Master of Arts (MA).