International Music Management MA/MSc
Epsom
Course overview
Propel your music industry career aspirations onto the global stage on UCA's MA/MSc International Music Management degree course at our Business School for the Creative Industries.
With some of the biggest selling artists now originating from non-English speaking countries, such as Korean groups BTS and Blackpink, and the Latin American market, language is no longer a barrier to achieving international success.
This breakdown of barriers, together with evolving digital economies, provide fascinating opportunities and challenges. The effect on traditional business models is also essential to understand - artists, songwriters and record labels can now reach global audiences directly and instantaneously. So it's important to explore how international music markets operate in terms of music consumption, marketing, branding, economics and distribution.
This course will enable you to choose from a range of career paths including artist management, international marketing, strategic development, social media marketing, eCommerce, record company marketing, supply chain management, music publishing, and careers in music tech companies, start-ups or consultancy.
By the time you graduate, you will have a comprehensive and critical understanding of historical contexts and current issues facing the music industry, and be able to apply advanced skills, techniques and processes to ensure your success in a dynamic international music market.
A one-year course of advanced study for furthering your research skills and specialising within your discipline.
A year-long preparatory course of study to ready you for your Master’s, developing your specialist skills, research acumen and confidence in working autonomously.
The Integrated Pre-Masters course has been suspended for 2022 entry.
A year-long preparatory course of study to ready you for your Master’s in the UK, developing your English speaking and writing together with your specialist skills, research acumen and confidence in working autonomously.
Course details
The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.
Get ready for your chosen postgraduate course with this preparatory year of specialist study. With a mix of online and face-to-face learning, UCA’s Integrated Pre-Masters is designed to give you insight into the study skills required to complete a Master’s, within the context of your creative subject. You’ll build skills in autonomous learning, forming your own targets and goals, honing your research skills, time management and professional practice.
For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Pre-Masters year.
On this course you’ll prepare for postgraduate study with a mix of online and face-to-face learning that will give you the study skills required to complete a Master’s, and you’ll also improve your English for academic study.
Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures and Creative Industries: Leadership
These units are delivered in parallel, through an integrated series of guest lectures, inter-active presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming.
The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.
Postgraduate Bootcamp 1: Creativity & Orientation
Bootcamp 1: Creativity is designed to introduce you to the Business School for the Creative Industries highly effective learning community and professional global network orientation. Through a series of exciting and engaging fast paced workshops, tasks and peer sessions you will access resources, build relationships and develop a vision of the function of business for the creative industries.
The Industry of Music
This unit will focus on the three pillars of the music industry: The Recording Industry, Live Music Industry and Music Publishing. Within these core areas the unit will provide historical context, evaluate the impact of disruption and consider trends and developmental opportunities and challenges as technology continues to impact on the business.
Creative People & Organisations
This module is designed to provide an insight into the complex theories and contemporary management practice within the creative industries both in the UK and globally.
Global Music Industry & Business
This unit provides you with the opportunity to gain comprehensive knowledge of current theories and practices for managing Music business and process in a global context. There is a strong focus on contemporary business and marketing concepts enabling you to position yourself and your practice within this constantly changing and demanding landscape.
Marketing, Design & Communications
By examining concepts and developing research and practice, there is an opportunity to not only understand and broadly examine Marketing, Design & Communications but to also consider and apply appropriate solutions to current global issues facing brands in a meaningful, focused and professional way.
Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures and Creative Industries: Leadership
These units are delivered in parallel, through an integrated series of guest lectures, inter-active presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming.
The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.
Bootcamp 2: Forecasting & Predictive Analysis
Through examples from empirical research, you will have an overview of main concepts, statistical models, methods, tools and underlying principles used to improve business decision-making. You will learn fundamentals of exploratory data analysis and how to aggregate and visualize datasets.
Managerial Accounting & Finance
This unit analyses perspectives and techniques in accounting and financial control and considers how they are used by modern enterprises to effectively manage in competitive business environments.
Music & Brand Management (MA course)
This unit will explore the concepts of international brand development, cultural differences, and identity and management strategies. You will explore the development of a brand identity campaign in accordance with the company/artist vision, mission, defined objectives and outcomes, utilising research methodologies with a focus on global and cultural contexts, building a clear set of ethical and sustainable values meeting the needs of diverse consumers and intermediaries.
Digital Marketing Analytics (MSc course)
This unit explores the evolution of digital marketing and technologies, theories and practice of marketing, and the digital consumer. You will analyse trends and digital communications to innovate, explore and create digital marketing/media strategies and plans to reach various audiences from stakeholders and clients to consumers.
Artist & International Rights Management
This unit discusses music copyright and the management and exploitation of artists and their rights internationally in the digital age. Anchoring music copyright in historical foundations, the unit will trace the development and adaptation through analogue and digital disruption across the decades.
Human-centred Innovation & Design
You will learn how to design and develop systems by applying HCD and innovation principles and techniques through various relevant activities in planning and management to satisfy user needs and requirements in business, social and global contexts.
Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures and Creative Industries: Leadership
These units are delivered in parallel, through an integrated series of guest lectures, inter-active presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming.
The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.
Bootcamp 3: Competitive Intelligence & Research
Bootcamp 3: Competitive Intelligence Research is designed to familiarise you with the gathering and analysis of competitors, customers, distributors, technologies, and other relevant stakeholders and features in the environment for proactive decision making in the face of threats and opportunities.
Live Music: Touring & Management (Elective A, MA course)
The purpose of this unit will be to analyse and evaluate the structure of the global live industry, identifying key companies and players, the current issues and the changing interdisciplinary relationships between live and recorded music sectors from a cultural and economic perspective.
Augmented & Synthetic Experiences (Elective A, MA course)
This unit aims to holistically approach the subject of “experience” within technological contexts; looking to the practical, critical and theoretical positions that surround this subject. The unit begins by outlining some of the origin stories for technology – and their intersection with notions of the “synthetic” or “augmented”.
Trends & Forecasting (Elective A, MA/MSc course)
This unit will require you to engage in both perceptive and analytical approaches to trends research. You will be introduced to the key theories of prediction and forecasting alongside the fundamental framework of trend research (recognise, analyse, and translate).
Business Analytics (Elective A, MSc course)
This unit explores how to acquire, process, analyse and interpret data to provide meaningful value for creative organisations. It will look at how data is used in the creative industries, how AI and machine learning are advancing this area, and what the future may look like for the creative industries.
Creative Business Start-up (Elective B, MA course)
This unit will explore the concept of developing creative businesses and the new paths for start-ups. It will analyse the evolution of business structures and explore the new market opportunities and challenges arising from geo-politics, trade relations and the global pandemic.
Strategy & Planning (Elective B, MA course)
This unit first focuses on defining strategy, looking at the process of strategy formulation and describing the role of management within that process. It instructs how to craft vision and mission statements, how to identify and manage external strategic influences, and includes discussion on corporate social responsibility and sustainability.
Investment in the Creative Industries (Elective B, MA/MSc course)
This unit covers the various means of investment in the creative industries: investing in the companies, ideas, and entrepreneurs that will drive the evolution of the creative industries.
Behavioural Studies & Consumption (Elective B, MA/MSc course)
In this Unit, you will overview main behaviour theories from marketing, sociology and psychology, and their recent trends, to analyse and get acquainted with the decision-making processes of consumers, and their main factors, with a particular application to cultural and creative goods.
Masters Project
The Masters Project is an opportunity to create value for yourself at the highest strategic level in a tangible and measurable way as a culmination of your learning experience. It requires you to approach a real problem or opportunity, analyse it and develop a recommended strategy and implementation plan, while applying some relevant concepts and frameworks from your studied programme. You will have the opportunity to also select a project applicable to your company that might be working already in order to find solution to a real business problem.
Tuition fees - 2022 entry
UK students:
- Integrated Pre-Masters course - £10,500
- MA/MSc course - £10,500
EU students:
- Integrated International Pre-Masters course - £10,500 (see fee discount information)
- MA/MSc course - £10,500 (see fee discount information)
International students:
- Integrated International Pre-Masters course - £17,500
- MA/MSc course - £17,500
Additional course costs
In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials. These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the additional course costs for 2021 entry. The details for September 2022 will be available here in due course.
Further information
For more detailed information about our course fees and any financial support you may be entitled to please see our fees and finance pages.
The fees listed here are correct for the stated academic year only. Costs may increase each year during a student’s period of continued registration on course in line with inflation (subject to any maximum regulated tuition fee limit). Any adjustment for continuing students will be at or below the RPI-X forecast rate.
To support our students and alumni to progress to the next level of study, we have developed a new range of fee discounts across a range of courses.
Course specifications
Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.
Facilities
The business courses at UCA Epsom have a baseroom with networked computer facilities and you also have access to our extensive range of campus facilities, including: print studios with extensive screen printing facilities, photography studios, 3D workshops, media store for borrowing film and photography equipment. There is also a modern library with a wealth of books, journals, special collections and online resources.
Business School, UCA Epsom
Business School, UCA Epsom
Business School, UCA Epsom
Business School, UCA Epsom
Entry requirements
MA/MSc course
- An honours degree or equivalent qualification in the subject or a related discipline
and/or
- Relevant work experience, demonstrating your ability to study at postgraduate level.
Consideration will also be given to applicants who can make a strong case for admission in relation to a particular project and can demonstrate their potential to satisfactorily complete the course.
MA/MSc course with Integrated Pre-Masters course
MA/MSc course with Integrated International Pre-Masters course
A recognised bachelor degree or 3 year diploma with a strong portfolio in a relevant subject.
Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?
You may be able to enter the course through the following entry pathways:
MA/MSc course
MA/MSc course with Integrated Pre-Masters course
MA/MSc course with Integrated International Pre-Masters course
These courses don’t require a portfolio.
Apply Now
Get in touch