PhD in Music

Doctoral students can choose between three specialization areas: Arts Study Program, Research Study Program, and Applied Study Program.

Why study here?

Our graduates are experts who are capable of high-level creative and critical work and who operate in demanding art, research, development, and educational positions independently and in collaboration with others. Doctors of Music also act as social influencers for an ethically sustainable future.

About the studies

If you are interested in creative music performance, composition, music theory, or church music and if your doctoral project relates stylistically to the tradition of Western art music ranging from ancient music to the latest contemporary music, we recommend that you complete your doctoral studies at the Sibelius Academy’s Doctoral School DocMus. If you are interested in jazz, folk music, music education, music technology, or arts management and entrepreneurship, you should complete your doctoral studies at the Sibelius Academy’s Doctoral School MuTri.

Arts Study Program

The Arts Study Program involves producing a thematically coherent, research-oriented artistic demonstration of proficiency.

The specific goals of the Arts Study Programme are to provide students with:

• the capacity for excellent and insightful artistic expression
• the capacity for conceptual clarity in producing information
• the capacity for generating new information through artistic and research methods and theories
• the capacity to engage in constructive interaction in the arts community, in the academic community, and in society at large.

The demonstration of proficiency to be completed in the Arts Study Programme must be a thematically consistent, research-oriented project consisting of artistic components, a written component (thesis), and a summary. You must define the goals, content, scope, and interrelation of these components in your post-graduate study plan that must be included in your application. The post-graduate study plan will be updated as your doctoral studies progress.

• The artistic components of the demonstration of proficiency may be recitals, compositions, artistic productions, liturgies, recordings, online materials, videos, etc. These components must amount to at least two and at most four concert programs or similar artistic entities for a doctorate (at most two for a Licentiate’s degree).
• The demonstration of proficiency also includes a written component, which may be a thesis in a form of a monograph, a comparable multimedia research text, or consist of at least one peer-reviewed research article. The written component must form a coherent research project when taken together with the other components of the demonstration of proficiency.
• The summary must be a concise report of the goals, framework, and components of your demonstration of proficiency and of their interrelations, along with a review of the results and a discussion of the significance of those results. If the written component is a monograph-form thesis, then you include the summary in that. If the written component is an article, then you write the summary separately.

In addition, the Arts Study Program includes artistic and research-oriented studies as well as other applicable/suitable university-level supporting studies of a minimum of 75 ECTS credits.

• Working as an artist
• In-depth musical education and necessary research skills
• Key career skills, such as communication and interaction skills, as well as self-knowledge and communality

Research Study Program

The particular objectives of the Research Study Programme are to provide the student with:

• the ability to produce high-quality information
• the ability to interact in academic communities and beyond
• the ability to integrate into the international research community, as well as
• the ability to strengthen the status of academic research

The demonstration of proficiency in the Research Study Programme is a dissertation. It is a coherent presentation based on the student’s own independent research with new academic information in the field of research represented at the Sibelius Academy. In addition, the doctoral studies in the Research Study Programme include university-level studies on knowledge and skills that support the training of researchers.

The scope of the doctoral dissertation is 165 ECTS credits and it can be either a monograph or an article dissertation. The licentiate degree’s demonstration of proficiency is a licentiate thesis comprising 75 ECTS credits. It can also be a monograph or consist of articles.

The article dissertation/licentiate thesis consisting of articles must include a summary that states the objectives, problem, method, and results of the research. In addition to the summary, it must include 3–7 (dissertation) or 2–5 (licentiate thesis) articles that have been reviewed by referees and that deal with the same set of problems and that are published in a scientific publication series or have been approved for publishing. The researcher must be the primary author of each article and they must be able to prove their independent contribution to the topic. The number of articles depends on the nature of the research project and the amount of work required to produce the articles. The researcher must provide written evidence of their participation in joint publications when the research is submitted for the preliminary examination.

In addition, the Research Study Programme includes research-oriented studies as well as other applicable university-level supporting studies comprising a minimum of 75 ECTS credits.

Students agree with their supervisor on which supporting studies, worth 75 ECTS credits, they will complete. The studies must cover the following topics:

• Studies on the topic of the student’s own work
• General research studies in the field
• Studies focusing on the researcher’s profession and readiness to enter the workforce

Applied Study Program

The Applied Study Program offers a unique opportunity to develop music-related practices and tools through research. The need for development is based on personal experience and interest, as well as the needs of the changing operational environments of music. This development work results in innovation and new ways of working.

The particular objectives of the Applied Study Programme are to provide the student with:

• high-level academic/methodological/pedagogical/artistic/ technical skills,
• the ability to develop new high-level methods, capabilities, materials, and tools,
• the ability to collect, critically evaluate, produce and apply information,
• the ability to cooperate with Finnish and international partners in their field and also beyond, as well as
• the ability to communicate the results of their work to different audiences.

Doctoral students in the Applied Study Program can complete either a research-oriented or an artistic degree.

Content of the program

The core content of the degree is called the development target. The demonstration of proficiency is comprised of outputs connected to the development target in such a way that is appropriate for the nature of the development target.

The scope of the demonstration of proficiency in the Applied Study program is 165 ECTS credits for a doctorate and 75 ECTS credits for a licentiate degree. The demonstration of proficiency includes

a) A development project, which generates results that are

• immaterial (views, knowledge and skills, know-how and capabilities) and
• material (concerts, recordings, mold materials, teaching materials, online materials, methods, programs)

b) A description of testing the results of the development project and the utilization of the obtained information

c) A summary describing the phases of the development work

In addition, the Research Study Programme includes research-oriented studies as well as other applicable university-level supporting studies comprising a minimum of 75 ECTS credits. The supporting studies in the Applied Study Programme can be either artistic or research-oriented.

Students agree with their supervisor on which supporting studies, worth 75 ECTS credits, they will complete. The studies must cover the following topics:

• Studies related to the doctoral project
• General studies on application and development work
• Studies related to readiness to enter the workforce

Teachers

Our teachers are some of the best experts in their respective fields. In addition to the permanent teaching staff, the program welcomes international top professionals as guests on a regular basis.

Doctoral studies provide the competence for a wide variety of artistic careers, for teaching, research, and development tasks, as well as for various sectors of societal activity. Our doctoral alumni work, for example, in the following positions: research project leader, academy research fellow, researcher, artist, provincial artist, musician, conductor, opera coach/collaborative pianist, singer, composer, professor, university lecturer, lecturer, teacher, rector, and expert.

Content of the program

Please visit the university website for information.