The Music Department at the University of Huddersfield has excellent performance and performance research facilities. There are two concert halls. Phipps Hall, in the Music Department, is an intimate space appropriate for chamber music performance and is used by a very wide variety of musical events; it includes a recent Steinway Model D piano and a replica Baroque chamber organ (pictured right). St Paul’s Hall, a converted Georgian church dating from 1829, is a larger, more resonant space. It has two resident Steinway pianos (a Model D, and Model C), an 1897 7ft 4in Broadwood, a two manual harpsichord, a portable chamber organ by Wood of Huddersfield, and a large 3 manual tracker action concert organ.

Historical performance as a research and practice area benefits from a range of replica instruments, including several harpsichords, a Baroque string quartet, sackbuts, viols and many other instruments, housed in the Early Music Studio. We also possess a 1928 violin made by Arnold Dolmetsch, and an expanding historical piano collection. This currently comprises an 1897 Broadwood grand, fully restored by Hurstwood Farm Piano Studios (and available for recitals), and a c.1830 Clementi square piano, which will shortly be undergoing restoration.

Phipps organ

The university has piano stock of scale and quality virtually unrivalled in a university music department in the UK. 

As regards twentieth-century music and contemporary music performing practice, all performers specialising in contemporary music are members of the University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM), and as such enjoy regular and fruitful collaborations with staff and postgraduate composers, having opportunities to work with electronics alongside experts and student specialists, frequent guest speakers, composers and performers. They are part of a vibrant, dynamic community of new music specialists and enthusiasts, exchanging knowledge and ideas through seminars, research fora, workshops and other activities.

Teaching spaces

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Studios

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Rehearsal and practice rooms

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Performance spaces

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