Music making in the 21st Century is defined by specialisation and diversity, action and interaction, multimedia and collaboration. The School of Contemporary Music at the Victorian College of the Arts embraces these things as core experiences, offering programs that prepare students and develop research within the specialisations of Contemporary Music Performance, Interactive Composition and Music Theatre.
The program is built on a commercial and contemporary music making model that propagates both specialisation and cross-disciplinary collaboration that is mentor driven, practice based and industry linked. Content is both specialised and diverse and, for example might include: creating music for gaming, animation and film; contemporary performance improvisation in jazz and world music; intensive music theatre training in singing, acting and dance.
The VCA provides a forum to realise contemporary music and contemporary art synergies with other VCA areas of specialisation and broadly creates a context to catalyse new synergies across the University of Melbourne and industry as a whole.
Students join the ranks of our esteemed alumni, who are prominent music industry professionals working in diverse fields. Our alumni are an integral part of contemporary Australian music making, contributing to the country’s overall cultural export as contemporary improvisers, performers, composers, arrangers and producers in popular (pop, rock, r&b, indie, hip-hop, folk, blues, country, techno, groove, etc), jazz, indigenous, world and experimental genres; recording session performers on albums, film, television orchestras and soundtracks; composers for film, television, theatre, dance; music theatre practitioners, educators, program leaders, lecturers and teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary levels nationally and internationall
