Composition Audition Requirements

Audition Requirements for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Composition Applicants

Portfolio requirements

Send a portfolio of at least three compositions in any style and, where possible, recordings of these works. A broad range of pieces is encouraged. If you’re in a band, add a track that you’ve created, even if you didn’t do it on your own. We want to find out what you are really interested in. Your portfolio will form the basis of the audition interview. Please send us your portfolio within two weeks of applying.

Audition interview

The panel will be interested to hear you talk about your artistic influences, your inspiration to be a musician and your career objectives. It is worth being familiar with compositional trends over the past 50 years and how you relate to these. This is also an opportunity for you to ask the panel questions about your department and what life will be like as a musician in Birmingham. There are usually two people on the panel interviewing you and the interview will last around 15 minutes for the undergraduate course and 20-30 minutes for the Master's course.

Portfolio Submission

Once your application has been submitted we will contact you via e-mail on how to upload your portfolio links to the MySRS portal.

We request that portfolios are submitted as one folder following this format:

Folder title: First Name_Surname_UCAS Applicant ID

Subfolder I - Scores (by “scores” we mean any form of notation)
Subfolder II - Recordings

Please visit our Audition Advice page to help you prepare for your virtual audition and interview. You are not required to perform on an instrument for your composition audition.