Choral conducting

Is it your professional goal to conduct choirs professionally? Would you like to develop an expressive conducting language and practise working with university choirs, student ensembles and external orchestras during your studies? Would you like to develop, rehearse and perform your own concert project? Then our Choral Conducting degree is the next step after a successful BA or MA degree in Music.

• Expansion of the ensemble’s repertoire by incorporating historical performance practice and sources
• Development of an expressive conducting language with practical relevance to various choirs and ensembles
• Critical study of sources

Students will work with both secular and sacred choral music. This specialised graduate programme aims to produce knowledgeable, versatile and flexible professional choral conductors. Students perfect their conducting, vocal and instrumental techniques, and benefit from tuition that draws on the latest research in a variety of fields such as historical performance practice. Students also learn to adopt a critical approach to the use and reading of primary sources.

The course contents the following topics:

• Evaluating and honing one’s own conducting practice and methods
• Development of an individual and expressive conducting idiom based on the technical knowledge and skills acquired to date
• Expanding one’s conducting repertoire in preparation for a future career (repertoire for equal or mixed voices; a cappella and instrument repertoire; sacred and secular works; works of varying degrees of difficulty)
• Practical work with university choirs, student ensembles and an external orchestra
• Extensive exposure to and examination of historical performance practice, relevant source material and academic literature, writing a term paper
• Conducting a concert of one’s own devising (Master’s qualification)

Career prospects

Holders of a FHNW Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance Choral Conducting are qualified to lead choirs and other vocal ensembles, whether amateur, semi-professional or professional, and different line-ups.

Target audience

This study course is aimed at musicians who wish to specialise in choral conducting and pursue a career as a choral conductor.

Study variant available:
The combined master's program – Choral Conducting and education in music pedagogy

The BA and MA degree programs at the Basel Academy of Music are based on modules.

The legally binding structure provides an initial guide to the content and weighting of the subjects on the degree programme.
The detailed content and modalities of the individual subjects can be found in the module descriptions.
The study regulations come into force together with the study and examination regulations of the Basel Academy of Music FHNW and form the legal framework.

Martin Wettges, born in Regensburg in 1983, studied conducting at the conservatories in Cincinnati, Vienna and Munich and has been choral director of the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo since 2018. Previously he held the same position at Opera North in Leeds. In 2016, he changed to the Meininger Staatstheater as choral director with conducting duties, where he regularly conducted symphony concerts with the traditional Meininger Hofkapelle in addition to opera performances. As a choral conductor, he has worked with the choir of the Herrenchiemsee Festival, the Meiningen Kantorei, the Munich Motet Choir, and many others. Martin Wettges is also artistic director of the choral festival Various Voices.
He lectured in conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich from 2008 to 2013. In 2012, he was also called to lecture at the Institute for Musicology at the LMU Munich. Since 2011, Martin Wettges has been artistic director of the Music Academy of the German National Academic Foundation in Brixen/South Tyrol, which he founded.

Admission criteria

In order to enter the FHNW Master of Arts in Specialized Musical Performance programme with a Major in Choral Conducting, applicants must be in possession of a Bachelor in Music (or an equivalent degree) as well as they must have passed the entrance exam and were offered a free place at the Academy (limited places of admission). Applicants who have submitted all the necessary registration documents in time will be invited to a live audition.
For further information on the admission criteria, please see the Study regulation of the Master of Arts FHNW in Specialized Music Performance.

Required Skills

• Experience of reading choral scores of different musical styles and eras
• Basic conducting skills
• Ear training qualification (minimum mark of 4.8, or Grade C)
• Excellent piano proficiency and basic score-playing/reading skills
• Basic knowledge of early musical notation/clefs and transposing vocals
• Choral and/or solo singing experience
• Pedagogical abilities, leadership qualities

We expect students to have sufficient German language skills at the beginning of the studies. Students who are not German native speakers must present a B1 German language certificate according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) at the beginning of the studies. This certificate must be complete, i.e. all modules (reading, listening, writing, speaking) have been tested separately and passed at least at level B1 overall. Only certificates that have been certified with the ALTE-Q-Mark seal of approval (e.g. the B1 certificate of the Goethe-Institut or the telc certificate) are accepted. The required certificate B1 must be submitted with the confirmation of admission but not later than 31st May. Exceptions will be decided upon by the head of degree programme.

Entrance Exam

Projects / Ensembles

At Hochschule für Musik Basel, students have the opportunity to participate in various project and ensemble programmes.
To the overview of the recurring offers.

Contact and Info-Event

Basel Academy of Music

An international institute of higher education and research