Professional Performance - AdvPgDip (post-Masters level 8)

Support your developing career as a professional performer with Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's post-Masters, Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Performance. You can choose one of seven specialisms: Instrumental Performance, Vocal Performance, Collaborative Piano, Organ Performance, Chamber Music Performance, Opera Repetiteurship or Choral Conducting.

Our Advanced Postgraduate Diploma (APD) is at 'post-masters level' and is ideal for you if you are an advanced postgraduate performer who already has a Masters degree and are beginning to accept professional engagements. The course will help you to raise your performance standards to the next level, with highly specialised one-to-one tuition in the department most relevant to your specialism.  You can study full-time over 12 months (September-September) or part-time (2 years).

Balance your study with professional experience

The Professional Performance APD allows you to take on performance engagements both within and outside Royal Birmingham Conservatoire as part of your course.   Assessment focuses on your work in professional contexts, via a Professional Performance Portfolio module and a choice of External Engagement and Professional Project modules.   We also provide a Career Management and Self-Promotion module designed to help you deal with those niggling, but vital, non-performance aspects of your professional career.

If you're a home or EU student you have the option to study part-time, which allows you to take the course alongside your already-developing career. Assessment focuses on your work in professional contexts, both within the Conservatoire and externally, and we also provide a Career Management and Self-Promotion module designed to help you deal with those niggling, but vital, non-performance aspects of your professional career.

How to apply

Please apply through UCAS Conservatoires using the links above. Our UCAS Conservatoires Institution code is B34.

At the same time as submitting an application, you should email the Conservatoire Admissions Office with the following:

• A full list of public performances given over the past 24 months, clearly indicating dates, venues and repertoire performed.
• A current biography (of the kind that would appear in a concert/operatic production programme).

International applicants

Your Stage 1 (preliminary round) audition should take place 'live' in your own country at one of the Conservatoire's established audition centres.  Where this is not possible, you should send an online link to a video recording.

Please note, however, that Stage 1 of the process will only be organised following receipt of your performance list and biography (see above).

If you proceed to Stage 2 (final round), we will contact you to request a further audition recording.  Where a face-to-face meeting is not possible, some appropriate means will be found to enable a follow-up discussion with you, eg Skype.

Please also note that whatever the timing of your audition/submission, no offers will be made until after the January audition period in Birmingham.

Completing your application

Further information on writing your personal statement can be found on the UCAS Conservatoires website.

If you're an instrumentalist, vocalist, collaborative pianist, organist, opera repetiteur or choral conductor, you will benefit from one-to-one expert tuition with our internationally renowned tutors during the course. Chamber musicians are entitled to both individual tuition and regular coaching for their ensemble.

The three modules which make up the course (two core, one optional) are interrelated and complementary. The flexibility of content is such that you are able to tailor the programme to suit your own needs and aspirations.

Course structure

The course revolves around your individual needs, strategic goals and enthusiasms. To get the most out of it, you'll need to be highly self-motivated and able to work on your own initiative.

There is an expectation that, with the support of your course tutors, you'll take advantage of being on the course to seek out and maximise professional development opportunities which will be strategically useful to your developing career. In other words, this is not a course leading to the start of your career, but one which you take alongside it in its early stages. The principal aim is that, when you graduate, not only will your professional life be well under way, but you'll also have developed the confidence and skills to go on shaping it.

Throughout the course you'll have expert 1:1 tuition and/or coaching in your Principal Study area.

Students on this course have the opportunity to organise weekly performance classes for their cohort. You will also have access to the Conservatoire's full range of ensembles, departmental workshops, performance classes and masterclasses. As an emerging professional musician, it is hoped and expected that you'll carve a distinctive niche for yourself within your department, becoming a role model for students at earlier stages in their studies.

During the course, you will undertake two performance assessments in a professional context within the Conservatoire. For full-time students these will usually take place in terms two and three; for part-time students, one assessment will usually take place in Year 1, and the other in Year 2. You will then have the option to undertake a third professional engagement externally (via the External Engagement module) or to undertake a Professional Project in an area closely aligned to your career aspirations.

Throughout the course, your work in performance will be supported by the Career Management and Self-Promotion module. This module is focused on providing you with practical preparation for the professional world and will be supported by individual tutorials and regular workshops for the whole cohort. 

Student stories

Di Xiao

This intensive and inspiring course gave me the confidence and experience that prepared me for international competitions and, ultimately, the stage. Thanks to the mentoring and encouragement of the Conservatoire's staff I went on to win first prize in the Brant International Piano Competition in the year I graduated.

In turn, that led to a European tour as the UK's 08/09 representative to the European Concert Halls Organisation "ECHO Rising Stars" series during which I gave recitals at 11 of the World's most prestigious venues. The foundation provided by the APD enabled me to build a busy international touring and recording career which has included the release of 2 CDs (a third is under production), radio appearances for the BBC and Classic FM and collaborations with some of the world’s finest artists.

Chris Orton

Since graduating with the APD course prize in 2004, Chris Orton continued to pursue joint careers as a soloist and teacher.

Jack McNeill

I found the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s APD course an invaluable addition to my education as a performer. I received fantastic tuition and was constantly encouraged to look for and take hold of opportunities beyond my studies.

Birmingham City University is a vibrant and multicultural university in the heart of a modern and diverse city. We welcome many international students every year – there are currently students from more than 80 countries among our student community.

The University is conveniently placed, with Birmingham International Airport nearby and first-rate transport connections to London and the rest of the UK.

Our international pages contain a wealth of information for international students who are considering applying to study here, including:

• Explore some of the good reasons why you should study here.
• Find out how to improve your language skills before starting your studies.
• Find all the information relevant to applicants from your country.
• Learn where to find financial support for your studies.

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s £57 million music building opened in September 2017, and is located on Birmingham City University’s City Centre Campus in the Eastside ‘learning quarter’ of the city.

This brand new music facility include five public performance venues – a 500 seat Concert Hall, 150 seat Recital Hall, Organ Studio, Eastside Jazz Club and the experimental black box performance venue known as The Lab. As well as these stunning performance venues, we have nearly 100 practice spaces; including 70 small practice rooms and larger ensemble rooms and workshops.

Our new home is the first conservatoire built in the digital age, and as such it has been vital to ensure that the technical infrastructure installed is on par with any advanced commercial facility. We have seven recording studios, a mastering suite, a distance learning hub, and all of our performance venues feature high specification audio-visual equipment that enables interconnectivity and advanced functionality throughout the building.

These impressive modern facilities guarantee that we are excel in our unique dual purpose of providing the highest standard of music education deserved by our students, as well as meeting our role as a concert and performance venue for the people of Birmingham; taking our place in the vibrant cultural landscape of the UK’s second city.