Music History Courses in London and Online
City Lit offers an extensive programme of online music history and music appreciation courses with a focus on Western classical music, Folk, Jazz, Rock and Pop. There are new topics each year across a growing range of music styles and traditions.
To find out more about music history classes and to read our year-long selection of courses, please see the blog post Music history: your guide to our programme which lists our full programme of classes ordered by term, and by day of the week. You may then click on each title to read the full course outline.
Our staff are all professional musicians who teach, write, broadcast, lecture and perform widely. In recent years they have worked with BBC Radio 3, Gramophone magazine, Birkbeck (University of London), The Open University, Oxford and Cambridge University Press, Early Music, The Orchestra of the age of Enlightenment, The Wigmore Hall and the Aldeburgh Festival.
Many of our students learn for pleasure but some also come to enhance their careers: recent examples include board members of music charities, marketing and administration professionals from orchestras and gap-year students considering university entrance.
Feel free to browse our programme and do email us at music@citylit.ac.uk with any questions.
- Introduction to film musicCourse start date: Mon 27 Feb 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneMusic has always been an important part of film-going, filling the silence and creating sometimes startling effects. We will look at the way directors have used music to enhance, enrich and enthral audiences from cinema’s earliest days.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Amy Beach: an introductionCourse start date: Thu 2 Mar 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy Hamilton
In the last few decades of the nineteenth century, as American composers were starting to determine their own nationalist approach to art music, the brilliant pianist and composer Amy Beach was a hugely popular figure in US musical life – in defiance of her family and husband. Come and learn about this symphonist who offered her own ‘reply’ to Dvorák’s Symphony ‘From the New World’.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Exploring opera 3Course start date: Mon 24 Apr 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneJoin us to explore the history of opera over three enjoyable terms. In this third term we’ll explore Verdi, Wagner and the early 20th century. Break weeks: 01, 06 & 29 May 2023 (Bank holidays).Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Introduction to musical analysisCourse start date: Mon 24 Apr 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneAn introduction to the major building blocks of music. Learn about melody, harmony, texture, rhythm, form and performance directions, and how to recognise these facets within further areas of study. Break weeks: 1 May, 6 May, 29 May 2023.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Exploring classical music: module 3Course start date: Tue 25 Apr 2023 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street (other locations are available)
Tutors: Edward BreenDo you want to know more about classical music history? Explore selected topics and key works in Romantic and modern music on this highly informative 10 week course. Ideal for people with no specialist knowledge. Please note this course has a mid-term break: 30 May 2023.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - The music of the Ballet RussesCourse start date: Tue 25 Apr 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Edward HendersonGet to know the music used and commissioned by the Ballet Russes from 1909-1929. This fascinating moment takes us from the 19th century Russian music of Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, through controversial neo-primitive like the Rite of Spring to the cool neoclassicism of Satie, Milhaud, Poulenc and Stravinsky. Break week: 30 May 2023.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Early music in the 20th centuryCourse start date: Tue 25 Apr 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Edward BreenExplore the early music pioneers of the 20th century. Learn about different approaches in each genre and unpick some of the arguments about ‘authenticity’ and ‘historically informed performance’ with instruments and voices. Scheduled break week 30 May 2023.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Exploring classical music: module 2Course start date: Tue 17 Jan 2023 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street (other locations are available)
Tutors: Neil LuckDo you want to know more about classical music history? Explore selected topics and key works in Baroque to Classical music on this highly informative 10 week course. Ideal for people with no specialist knowledge. This course has a scheduled break week: 21 February 2023.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Exploring opera 2Course start date: Mon 16 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneJoin us to explore the history of opera over three enjoyable terms. In this second term we’ll explore the innovations of Mozart, the impact of the French Revolution and the early Romantics. This course has a scheduled break week: 13 February 2023.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Introduction to musicalsCourse start date: Mon 16 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneFrom Showboat to Hamilton, this course surveys some key examples from the history of the modern musical and examines the way different styles of music, dance and words work on stage.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Exploring classical music: module 4Course start date: Tue 17 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Edward HendersonThis course offers a (very) brief history of Western art music during the 20th century. Suitable for classical music enthusiasts as well as near beginners. Each week we will look at a key work of classical music from the twentieth century and use it as a jumping off point to discuss the important historical and aesthetic developments that affected composition in the modern era. Break week: 14 Feb 2023.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Bach: instrumental worksCourse start date: Tue 17 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Karen BetleyFrom the Brandenburg Concertos to the Partitas for solo violin, instrumental music played an important role in the output of J.S.Bach. Come and explore these extraordinary works by this late Baroque master. This course has a scheduled break week: 21 Feb 2023.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Rachmaninov: an introductionCourse start date: Thu 19 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy HamiltonThe train whistles past the camera in the opening scene of Brief Encounter (1945) and we hear the opening bars of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – an iconic film that made this already wildly popular piece even more successful. But what of the work’s composer, who had died just two years before? We trace the turbulent career of this virtuoso musician.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00
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