Ignite your professional career as a musical director with our industry-focused MA. Designed for experienced and ambitious musicians, this programme offers personalised one-to-one coaching, intensive skills development, and direct engagement with leading practitioners, companies, and creatives across the region.
On top of working with the full suite of MA courses, you’ll gain invaluable hands-on experience by observing and working directly with our BA Musical Theatre students in their acting-through-song classes, singing technique sessions, and practical performance projects. This integrated learning environment gives you a unique lens into performer training and the collaborative processes at the heart of contemporary musical theatre.
Throughout the course, you’ll explore and challenge the evolving role of the musical director, shaping your own artistic identity through continuous collaboration and the creation of new work. You’ll develop the practical, creative, and leadership skills essential for today’s theatre landscape.
With collaboration and individual artistry embedded in every aspect of our Theatre MAs, you’ll graduate confident, adaptable, and ready to make your mark—equipped not only to thrive in a changing industry, but to help shape its future.
Students will develop the essential skills required to work professionally as a musical director within the theatre industry. Training includes:
Core Musical Direction Skills
Working Effectively With Singers
Rehearsal & Leadership Skills
New Work & Collaboration
Collaboration is central to the ethos at Leeds Conservatoire. As an MA Musical Direction student, you’ll work alongside peers from our other Theatre MA pathways, sharing core modules where you will generate new material within a collaborative, student-led environment. This cross-disciplinary approach empowers you to experiment, innovate, and refine your individual creative voice as both an artist and a practitioner.
Throughout the year, you’ll take part in a range of Theatre Labs and R&D projects, developing emerging ideas with writers, directors, composers, and performers. These labs offer a dynamic, professional-style settings in which you can explore new concepts, test material, and evolve your practice as part of a creative team.
There will be multiple opportunities to present developing work across a variety of contexts and performance environments, giving you valuable insights into how new work grows from first concept to final production.
The year culminates in an exciting professional opportunity: you will musically direct your final project as part of the Leeds Theatre Festival, working with actors, singers, musicians, and creatives to bring new or existing work to life in front of a public audience. This final project provides a real-world platform to showcase your artistry, leadership, and readiness for the industry.
This programme is designed to connect aspiring Musical Directors directly with the professional world. Workshops, masterclasses, and creative projects are led by experienced MDs, composers, arrangers, and industry creatives, all supported by the region’s vibrant theatrical community.
As part of your training, you will also complete our dedicated ‘Placement’ module, giving you the opportunity to observe and assist on professional productions across the UK. Working alongside some of the industry’s leading Musical Directors, you’ll gain invaluable insight into real-world rehearsal processes, musical leadership, and the day-to-day demands of professional theatre.
You’ll benefit from Leeds Conservatoire’s strong partnerships with renowned organisations including Leeds Playhouse, Red Ladder, Opera North, and Slung Low, alongside our extensive network of West End practitioners, UK theatre companies, and international Musical Theatre makers.
These industry connections offer exceptional access to current practice, creative mentorship, and emerging career pathways; equipping you with the skills, experience, and professional visibility to launch a successful career as a Musical Director.
Our campuses include a brand-new building at Playhouse Square, housing state-of-the-art specialist performance facilities. With a panoramic view over the city landscape, this £60m development contains bespoke facilities for our theatre courses, including state-of-the-art dance and drama studio spaces and music ensemble rooms.
Leeds is also rich with creative and artistic spaces which are invaluable in offering training which is embedded in the City. As an artist who is interested in developing new work you may be able use those environments to inspire your work.
This module is designed to introduce students to the principles and techniques behind successful, collaborative arts practice. The module will develop the students’ knowledge and understanding of collaborative performance settings, expanding their knowledge of how work is made.
The module emphasises the ability to critically analyse personal and professional experiences, allowing students to engage in deep reflection. Through this module, students develop as reflective practitioners who understand the value of their artistry in a collaborative setting and proactively seek to develop their skills.
Through this module, students will study the process of successful collaborators, who work across disciplines to make original performance. They will work together in interdisciplinary teams, using their individual experiences and expertise to generate ideas, creative responses to given briefs and present ideas to audience for funding/development support.
Our one-to-one classes give Musical Direction students dedicated time to develop their musicianship with the support of an assigned specialist tutor. These personalised sessions allow you to focus on specific areas of interest, address gaps in knowledge, and refine the technical and artistic elements of your craft.
Alongside individual training, you’ll take part in group classes in arranging, orchestration, and musical analysis, designed to strengthen the creative and practical skills required of contemporary Musical Directors.
You will also engage in sessions that introduce strategies and professional practices unique to the role of the MD, helping you understand how to lead teams, manage rehearsal processes, and support performers with confidence and clarity. This combined approach gives you the space to expand your skillset, explore new musical styles, and shape the artistic direction you wish to pursue as an emerging Musical Director.
Applied Musical Theatre Context’ dropdown menu to: “In this module, students explore musical theatre as a storytelling form and cultural practice, grounding their work in historical context, critical theory, and close analysis of sung narrative. Using key works as case studies, they will examine how songs heighten storytelling and shape character, structure, and meaning.
Students engage with narrative theory and the dramaturgy of song, alongside close study of musical and lyrical construction, and the ways style and genre emerge from specific cultural moments. A core strand of the module traces musical theatre’s lineage through opera and operatic traditions, considering musical theatre as an offshoot of – and ongoing conversation with – that earlier art form.
Alongside this historical grounding, students are introduced to contemporary critical frameworks, applying these perspectives to questions of representation, voice, power, and authorship in musical storytelling.
Musical Directors will collaborate closely with our Actor Musicians across a series of projects throughout the module, exploring the many ways music can drive narrative, shape character, and elevate storytelling. Together, you’ll learn to generate authentic, performance-ready work quickly and collaboratively, learning by mirroring the fast-paced demands of the professional rehearsal room.
These sessions blend collaborative ensemble practice with opportunities to step into a traditional leadership role. As a Musical Director, you will learn how to run a rehearsal with a company of actors and musicians, developing confidence in guiding a creative team, communicating musical ideas, and shaping a cohesive artistic vision.
Across the module, you’ll work on a wide range of material, both set repertoire and devised pieces created in class.
This training ensures you graduate with the artistic flexibility, musical authority, and collaborative instincts essential for today’s theatre landscape.
This module gives you the chance to work DIRECTLY with industry professionals on both internal Leeds Conservatoire projects, and on UK wide industry leading shows. You’ll gain hands-on experience, build confidence, and make meaningful connections as you explore where your specialism can take you.
You’ll undertake a placement working directly with our undergraduate or postgraduate students, contributing to real learning environments and expanding your professional toolkit. Additional placement opportunities are offered each year through our growing network of external organisations, evolving in response to your area of study and our active partnership collaborations.
You’ll also be supported to design your own placement with an organisation that aligns with your creative goals and future ambitions to help you to shape an experience that truly supports your individual professional development
In your final module, you’ll bring everything you’ve learned on the course together by musically directing a full-scale production as part of the Leeds Theatre Festival. Whether you choose to write and compose your own original material or work as part of a creative team, you’ll take a central leadership role in shaping a production from first concept through to public performance.
As the Musical Director, you’ll drive the musical identity of the piece by overseeing arrangements, leading rehearsals, working with performers, and delivering a polished, professional-standard show. This is a hands-on opportunity to apply your full skillset in a real-world context, collaborating with writers, directors, actors, and musicians to bring a new work to the stage.
Your final production will be performed publicly at the renowned Leeds Theatre Festival, attended by industry guests, employers, and creative professionals. It’s an exceptional platform to showcase your artistry, demonstrate your musical leadership, and graduate with a major professional credit already on your CV.
This is your moment to define your creative identity, build industry visibility, and make a confident statement as an emerging Musical Director.
You will be assessed at the end of each of three trimesters on Applied Musical Theatre Context, Musicianship and Group Musicianship. These practical assessments will focus on putting into practice the skills received during that trimester. This may include one or more of the following: conducting, orchestration, working with singers and accompaniment skills.
Finally, you will be assessed on your Major Project, which culminates in a production/s in third term. This assessment will cover the Project's inception, development and performance/s, largely based upon a dissertation you will produce.
Our Performing Arts students benefit from bespoke new facilities in our brand new Playhouse Square building.
Teaching will take place at our St Peters Square, Mabgate and Playhouse Square buildings as well as external teaching spaces where necessary.
We are confirming teaching spaces for 2026/27, but teaching spaces in 2025/26 also included Slung Low Theatre Company in Holbeck, Dance Studio Leeds and Yorkshire Dance.
Take a look at our custom-designed studios with panoramic views over Leeds city centre.
See Performing Arts FacilitiesGraduates from the Musical Direction MA will be excellently placed to work as an MD for a wide-range of theatre performances and performance projects, with experience they will be able to adapt to different size and scale projects. Upon successful completion of the course students may go onto careers which may include:
Students will be taught by staff who are specialists within their field and include performers, creatives, entrepreneurs and academics who work professionally in the theatre industry. All teaching staff must apply for and be granted Recognised Teacher Status by the University of Hull.
Course Type: MA Postgraduate Degree
Duration: 1 year
Study Mode: Full Time
Start date: September
Validated by: University of Hull
Alternatively you can apply directly to Leeds Conservatoire.
OR
All students requiring a visa to study in the UK must meet the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) department's English Language requirement of IELTS 6.0 with no sub-test less than 5.5
Musical Directing applicants will provide a portfolio of their previous work/material. Either as a composer, arranger, instrumentalist or musical director.
The audition process will be in 2 stages:
Find out more and read our full guidance on our Postgraduate Auditions page.
Full details on tuition fees are available on our Fees & Funding for Postgraduate study page.
Leeds Conservatoire offers the following discounts for taught on-site Masters courses:
For more funding options, visit our Postgraduate Scholarships and Bursaries page.
International Students
Details about tuition fees and scholarships for international students are available here.
