Bachelor of Music

College teaching, in the form of supervisions and seminars, complements that provided by the Faculty. Our aim at Selwyn is to ensure that supervisions are tailor-made to the subject being studied and to the undergraduate studying it, flexible in organisation and adapted to suit individual needs.

Music at Selwyn enjoys a high reputation, both locally and nationally. There is always a large number of undergraduates reading Music at Selwyn. Among the many distinguished musicians who have graduated from Selwyn are Sir David Lumsden (formerly Principal of the Royal Academy of Music), Professor Gerald Hendrie (formerly Professor of Music at the Open University), and Dr Richard Marlow (formerly Director of Music at Trinity College, Cambridge). The College is ideally situated for Musicians, being literally next door to the Music Faculty.

There is much music-making within the College, and Selwyn musicians are conspicuous also for the prominent part they play in the musical life of the University at large. Many players in university orchestras are Selwyn undergraduates, for example, and the College has provided several of the elected officers of the main university music societies. The College Library holds over 40,000 books. This includes a large music section where you will find books and scores that are of central importance in the Music Tripos, as well as many others of a more specialised nature; the Library’s holdings in Music are continually updated. The Library also provides a pleasant study area.

Selwyn is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is home to students of all backgrounds from the UK and across the world. We are proud of our diversity, and we welcome everyone whatever their race, gender, sexuality, disability, or religious belief.

The college takes its name from George Augustus Selwyn, who was the first Bishop of New Zealand (1841-68) and later Bishop of Lichfield (1868-78), and in whose memory the college was founded. The college opened at the start of the academic year in 1882, when 28 undergraduates were admitted. The teaching staff comprised the Master, the Tutor and one non-resident lecturer. At the time it was seen as being away from the Cambridge mainstream, despite only being a short walk from King’s College and the centre of the city. However, the Sidgwick site – which includes such major faculty buildings as Classics, Economics, English, History, Law, and Modern Languages – was later created right next to Selwyn; and due to the steady growth of the University and its development of the West Cambridge site, Selwyn now stands at its geographical heart.