MA The Beatles: Music Industry and Heritage

Overview

Based in Liverpool - birthplace of The Beatles, and a UNESCO City of Music - this programme aims to reframe and extend contemporary discourse about the Beatles beyond the historical and musicological into a broader and more robust 21st-century context.

You will explore how today The Beatles, their music and their story are inextricably bound up within an increasing number of creative and cultural industries including (but not limited to): music, media and social media, tourism, and heritage. Through interactions with the Liverpool Beatles tourism and heritage sectors, you will experience first-hand the role and significance The Beatles and their legacy contribute to these industries at local, regional and national levels.

You will have the opportunity to hear from and speak with guest lecturers, as well as visit and explore sites and venues in and around Liverpool and Merseyside that were formative in The Beatles' early years.

Why Music?

Strong research culture

Across the department, our research activity has a strong interdisciplinary nature and is concentrated in three cross-cutting areas:-

• Critical and Contextual Approaches
• Creative Practice
• Media and Industry Studies.

We're at the forefront of research and postgraduate teaching. Our Institute of Popular Music (IPM) was the first academic centre created specifically to study popular music and where better than in the home of the Beatles? It also boasts an enviable archive of donated recorded material.

Career prospects

Students from the taught postgraduate programmes in the department of Music have gone on to a wide range of careers, including various positions in the music industries, museums, arts administration, journalism, publishing, and teaching. PhDs in Music are in full-time lectureships around the world (e.g. Canada, Sweden). This programme has been recognised by the AHRC as appropriate training for advanced research, and prepares students for a level of further training equivalent to doctoral study.

Graduates will be equipped to enter a wide range of industries, including the local Beatles-related sector, heritage, museums, tourism and leisure, music, and creative industries in general. Students from the Department of Music have gone on to a wide range of careers, including various positions in the music industries, museums, arts administration, journalism, publishing, and teaching.