UNISA Department of Musicology

Musicology

Music study at Unisa began over 120 years ago with the examination of candidates in practical music and theory. Academic degree programmes have been offered since the early twentieth century, and Unisa alumni include many of South Africa’s foremost composers, performers, educators, scholars, and critics. The renowned choral composer Michael Moerane was South Africa’s first black BMus graduate in 1942. This was at a time when Unisa was the central examining body for the regional ‘University Colleges’ in South Africa.

The Department of Musicology was established after Unisa became a distance learning institution, and has played an important role in furthering the academic study of music in South Africa with the Journal Ars Nova, now Muziki and through the work of several generations of musicologists, researchers, and composers. Masters and Doctoral students from Unisa have gone on to take leading positions at South African universities, and postgraduate studies remain central to the Department’s research focus. In 2002 the Department of Musicology amalgamated with Art History and Visual Arts to form a vibrant interdisciplinary unit.

Our sub-department is the home of academic music studies at Unisa. Here you can study musicology at all levels from undergraduate to doctoral. Musicology at Unisa encompasses two broad fields: Composition Studies (CST) and Music in History and Society (MHS). Composition Studies consists of modules in composition, harmony and counterpoint, music technology, and performance practice. MHS explores an extensive range of Western, African and world music, including jazz, classical, folk, rock and popular music. Also included in the curriculum are modules on musical entrepreneurship, to prepare students for work in the music industry, and African composition resources. Musicology students have access to the Unisa library with its comprehensive body of scores, books on music, online resources, including e-books and music streaming sites, and over 17 000 CDs and DVDs. Unisa has the largest and most comprehensive music collection in South Africa.

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