VCA Music attracts outstanding young musicians and boasts one of the finest performance programs in the nation. All courses are concerned with harnessing and nurturing musical talent through an intergrated program of education and training to assist students on their journey to become leading practitioners in the field.

Repertoire (Classical)
The Repertoire (Classical) performance programs at VCA Music promote the highest standards in music enquiry, creativity and performance. They embrace an eclectic range of musical styles and genre, supported by a regular program of workshops and masterclasses, together with special projects throughout the year. Students are given regular opportunities to perform both within the College environment and externally. A wide range of public concerts, by students, staff, distinguished artists and artists-in-residence are programmed each year.
Improvisation (Jazz)

The Improvisation stream embraces a wide selection of musical styles including jazz, world music, free form improvisation, a capella, cross-over music and intermedia concepts. It is underpinned by a solid technical foundation and a thorough grounding in one of the most important languages found in the improvised musical world:the African-American jazz idiom.

As students progress through the course, the desire to take pathways which move away from the jazz idiom into more personal approaches is strongly encouraged, this complexity and diversity is seen as one of the great strengths of this course, and indeed it has much to do with its uniqueness.

Practical Composition
Composers of the twenty-first century are required to create sound for a diversity of contexts and utilise a diversity of styles and approaches. In the Practical Composition Stream composers work in a highly practical environment and develop skills in creating sound for many contexts. This includes composing music for a range of media including Film and TV, Dance, Drama and Concert Performance. The emphasis is on the making of sound often through collaboration and the realisation of new work in a live performance event. To assist in these areas, studies are completed in the Materials of Composition, Orchestration, Conducting and Direction and Cross-media elements. In addition, composers make use of the Composition Studio which has computer facilities that incorporate Pro-tools, Sibelius and Finale, along with a mixing desk, a Korg Triton sampling workstation, a video capture card with film monitoring facilities and a laser printer. These support materials are essential in the creation of sounding and notated music.
Music Theatre (new in 2009)

The Bachelor of Music Theatre is a new course in 2009 (based on the highly popular VCA Music Theatre Foundation Course) designed to develop creative music theatre performers who are sufficiently flexible to contribute to the changing needs of the artistic community. Graduates will be fully skilled to perform a wide range of Music Theatre repertoire, as well as being creative leaders who can generate, develop and perform their own work.

The course comprises an intensive skills building program throughout the three years across the principal disciplines of singing, acting and dance. Students will be able to apply these skills in practice in fully staged musical theatre shows in the latter stages of the course, in addition to experiencing the collaboration involved in staging new works. The course offers significant industry contact through workshops and master classes, an Artist in Residence Program and the breadth of professional performing artists teaching in the course.

Students will develop practical skills across the three disciplines involved in Music Theatre, and will gain understanding of the requirements of period, style and dramatic context. Whilst singing, acting and dance are each treated and taught as separate disciplines, students will learn to always consider their relationship to each other in Music Theatre and their combined contribution to storytelling.

MUSIC THEATRE (PDF 208KB)