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.
- Exploring classical music 2Course start date: Thu 25 Sep 2025 (and 3 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Neil LuckDo you want to know more about classical music history? Explore selected topics and key works in Baroque, Classical and early Romantic music on this highly informative 10-week course. Ideal for people with no specialist knowledge. Break week: 30 Oct 2025.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £153.00 - Writing about musicCourse start date: Thu 25 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Edward Breen, Katy HamiltonExperience the enjoyment of writing about music. Share your musical opinions in several formats and be inspired to develop your own longer-term writing project. Break week: 30 Oct 2025.Full fee £269.00 Senior fee £215.00 Concession £188.00 - Exploring classical music 4Course start date: Thu 25 Sep 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Neil LuckThis course explores key ideas in art music during the twentieth century. Each week’s topic is introduced through study of a seminal musical work. **Break week: 30th Oct 2025.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £219.00 Concession £153.00 - Introduction to chamber musicCourse start date: Fri 26 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Pauline GreeneWhat is chamber music, and how is it different from a Symphony or an opera? What sort of musicians would play chamber music and which periods of music history does it come? - Jazz today
Course start date: Wed 5 Nov 2025Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Albi GravenerAn exploration of jazz music as we find it today and as it has developed over the past forty years.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £104.00 - Introduction to string quartetsCourse start date: Fri 7 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Pauline GreeneString quartets developed new musical forms and ensured success for many composers, whilst allowing an intimate conversation with their audiences. We trace the quartets of the masters from Haydn and Mozart to Shostakovich and beyond.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £104.00 - Great works: Mendelssohn's OctetCourse start date: Tue 2 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy HamiltonStudy the history and form of this famous work in a short, enjoyable music history class.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - Great musicians: Berio and BerberianCourse start date: Tue 2 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Trish ShawComposer Luciano Berio and singer-composer Cathy Berberian were the power couple of contemporary music in the 1950s and 1960s, collaborating to discover new sounds and musical techniques and structures in works from Tema: Omaggio a Joyce and Sequenza III to Stripsody.Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £59.00 Concession £59.00 - Great works: Bach's Christmas OratorioCourse start date: Mon 8 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Edward BreenDiscover Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Learn about the forms of this work and the history behind the first performances.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - Music analysis for listeners: Messiah Part ICourse start date: Wed 10 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneHandel’s Messiah, composed in1741, is a stalwart work for concert programmers everywhere at Christmas and Easter. We look at Part I, from the beginning to the duet and chorus ‘His yoke is easy’, briefly putting the work in context and examining its forms and overall structure. We will then analyse a passage of recitative, an aria, and a chorus, in order to show how the composer created his effects and how effective this was for audiences then and now. *This course includes a 60 minute break.Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £59.00 Concession £59.00 - Great artists: David Munrow Course start date: Thu 11 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Edward BreenExplore the life and works of David Munrow, one of the key performers of early music in the 1960s and 1970s.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - Music history bookclub: The Great PassionCourse start date: Fri 12 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Edward BreenThe music history book club meets towards the end of each term to discuss novels and biographies with musical themes and references relevant to the music history programme.
Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £19.00 - The essential history of jazz in 20 cutsCourse start date: Mon 12 Jan 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Albi GravenerThrough a selection of 20 iconic albums, we will study the key figures, the innovators and the star soloists of 20th century jazz, as well as some important artists you might be less familiar with. Break week: 16 Feb 2026.Full fee £269.00 Senior fee £215.00 Concession £188.00 - Michael Tippett: an introduction to his musicCourse start date: Tue 13 Jan 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy HamiltonMichael Tippett was a British composer like no other, with interests in everything from Purcell and Beethoven to rock music and American spirituals. Come and discover the life and works of this unusual, brilliant, witty and beautiful musician.
Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £104.00 - Exploring opera 2Course start date: Tue 13 Jan 2026
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. break week: 17 Feb 2026.Full fee £269.00 Senior fee £215.00 Concession £188.00
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