Admission criteria
In order to enter the FHNW Master of Arts in Musical Performance programme with an instrumental or vocal major, applicants must be awarded a Bachelor in Music/Music and Movement or equivalent as well as they must have passed the entrance exam and were offered a free place at the Academy (limited places). Applicants who have submitted all the necessary registration documents in time and have passed the first round of the entrance exam will be invited to play a live audition. For further information on the admission criteria, please see the Studienreglement of the Master of Arts FHNW in Music Performance.
Required skills
- Prospective students should have a sufficiently advanced manual/technical mastery of the instrument/voice that no longer requires them to work on acquiring practical and theoretical foundations, thereby enabling them to concentrate fully on the artistic, stylistic and performance-related aspects of playing music.
- Prospective students should have a sufficiently firm grasp of the different styles within the basic repertoire that they are able to concentrate on consolidating and expanding their knowledge of instrumental/vocal styles in order to achieve the standard necessary for a professional qualification and for professional performance.
- Prospective students must demonstrate a strong desire to express themselves musically and to develop and actively pursue their own performance-related ideas. They must also be able to convincingly inform and communicate through the medium of music.
Students are expected to have a high degree of autonomy and self-awareness (healthy self-esteem), and to be broadly familiar with certain areas beyond their particular specialisation that could be beneficial to their career as a professional musician.
Admission criteria for internal Bachelor applicants
Internal Bachelor candidates absolve the entrance exam within their Bachelor qualification which they need to graduate with at least the grade 5.5. Further requirements are:
- Having passed the Master preparation course
- The jury must unanimously recommend that the student continues in the Master study course
- The consent of the Major professor
Language Skills
We recommend having sufficient German language skills.
Entrance exam
The entrance exams is split into the first round, which is held “by video”, and the second one, which is a live audition.
Procedure
First round: Video recordings
Applicants must submit a video when registering.
Video requirements
Repertoire requirements
The single works/movements submitted must indispensably be recorded without any cuts. If applicants submit one straight video with the whole programme, the applicant must set marks after every work/movement so that it is possible for the jury to purposely skip within the video.
Microphone: We recommend using a suitable stereo microphone and place it conveniently. If necessary, you may also use the mi-crophone of a camera, computer, or smartphone. Please record the video from a fixed point of view. The hands and the face of the musician must be visible. Publicly recorded concerts may be submitted as long as they correspond to the above-mentioned requirements (no cuts) and as long as they are not older than 6 months.
Please upload the video onto YouTube and add the link in the registration tool.
Please add the worklist to your application or send it by mail to registration.hsm@fhnw.ch until 15th February at the latest.
Only those applicants who will be considered for the second round will be invited for the live audition.
Second round: Live audition
Repertoire requirements
The choice of the programme may be identical as the one of the video. However, changes of the programme for the live audition can only be made until 14 days prior to the audition date.
The candidate may choose the first piece. Then, the jury will decide which works to play and is allowed to interrupt the audition at any time. Afterwards, there will be a short conversation about the goals of the studies and the study course content as well as the applicant´s prior education, experience, the choice of the professor, etc.
Dates
The live auditions will take place at the end of April. The exact dates may be seen here.
Registration
You may apply between 15th December and 15th February. Along with the registration, it is mandatory to submit the following documents: A curriculum vitae, a motivational letter, the school leaving qualification, the Bachelor Diploma. In case that the applicant already holds a Master Diploma, we also need a copy of that.
Announcement of the results
The results of the first round will be communicated by mail at the end of March.
The results of the second round will be communicated by mail at the beginning of May.
