Research in music at Cambridge is renowned both nationally and internationally, as demonstrated in the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, in which 45 per cent of our submitted research was judged to be world-leading, with a further 40 per cent assessed as internationally excellent. While much of our work is the outcome of individual scholarship, we also host two world-leading centres of collaborative research: the Centre for Music and Science, and the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice. These are complemented by a research infrastructure of international significance, including the Pendlebury Library and University Library as well as important College collections. See our Research Resources for further information about some of these collections.
One way to categorise our work is in terms of such broad areas of activity as composition, historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and science and music; the first two of these have been at the centre of the Faculty’s intellectual and musical life throughout its history, while the latter two have become prominent within the Faculty more recently. At the same time a number of common concerns or themes cut across these divisions, among them music before 1600, nineteenth-century music, opera studies, popular and media music, cultural musicology, theory and analysis, and performance studies. You can find out about what we do in more detail by exploring the individual publication lists under Academic Staff.
As one of the UK’s leading centres for advanced studies in music, with a range of Masters and PhD programmes, we support graduate research in all these fields. See Graduate Admissions for further details.