Adapting our music activities
Below, you can hear about the steps we took to provide online activities and keep our music community connected.
Online Seminar Series
The Research Seminar Series is a series of talks by leading researchers at this university and elsewhere. The series is aimed at postgraduate students and staff, but for 2020, our online version of the series allowed a wider audience of external visitors to attend. The series covered topics at the forefront of musical research, and is hosted on the University of Sheffield education resource, Blackboard.
After making the change from onsite to online provisions of the research seminar series for the 2020-2021 season, we are pleased this has created an online research community and allowed wider discussions to take place with prospective students, current members of the department and alumni who otherwise wouldn't have been able to attend.
The sessions take place on a Friday throughout the semester.
Schools
In 2020, our schools outreach team based within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities transformed their broad range of higher education experience events to an online suite of live interactive sessions and videos. Prior to Covid-19, academics would regularly visit post-16 events across the country to share information about studying music at Sheffield. This new method of interaction has allowed contacts to be established in schools further away from Sheffield, and the classes can now include further insights into life as a music student. The team look forward to continuing this blended approach in upcoming recruitment events.
If any schools are interested in having a music careers session, sample lecture, or presentation about studying music at university level, please get in touch with our team.
Virtual open days
Like many organisations across the country, all events planned for 2020 had to be either converted to an online format, completely reinvented, or cancelled. The Department of Music was fortunate to have full support from the central recruitment team who quickly provided an online platform to showcase our upcoming applicant and summer open day activities for prospective students.
The department worked hard to quickly gather media content, organise Q & A chat rooms and find a suitable backdrop for video calls! These changes allowed us to design a new approach, and the result of this has enabled a more personalised interactive set of activities that we have enjoyed delivering. Hosting pre-recorded lectures content and offering 36 degree tours of our facilities has given visitors a new insight into what studying music in Sheffield would be like.
As we look towards events in 2021, a combined programme of online and onsite activities are scheduled - so watch out for your invitations if you are hoping to attend!
The Soundhouse
Booking time in our studio and practice room facility, the Soundhouse, is an important part of the week for many music students. Having access to pianos, recording equipment and a soundproof space to develop techniques (or to make mistakes) is a space that is greatly valued as a learning environment for our department.
During the campus lockdowns, we were fortunate enough to be able to maintain building opening hours to the building. Although new cleaning and social distancing guidelines were introduced, we were pleased students continued to utilise the location to develop skills and techniques on their instruments during a time where many other performance venue in the city were closed off.