Music and a Modern Language

Music and a modern language is a combination that rewards those who want to pursue two demanding disciplines simultaneously and who recognise that both music and language open different but complementary windows onto human culture and expression. Music is one of the most universal of human activities, but its forms, meanings and practices are profoundly shaped by cultural and historical context. A modern language gives you direct access to another cultural tradition and another way of understanding the world, while also developing communicative competence of a kind that is valued across many careers.

Cardiff University offers this four-year full-time programme, allowing you to develop genuine depth in both music and your chosen modern language simultaneously. The music content is broad and rigorous, covering performance, composition, music history and criticism, aural skills and music theory, and you will develop both practical musicianship and scholarly analytical ability. The language strand takes you to a high level of communicative and analytical competence, combining language acquisition with the study of literature, culture and society in the language you have chosen.

Cardiff's strong music faculty and its position in the capital of Wales, with a rich musical culture of its own, provide an excellent environment for musical study.

The combination develops creative and analytical thinking in parallel, the kind of close attention to structure, form and expression that both disciplines demand, alongside the language skills and cultural knowledge that open up careers in international contexts. You will also develop the discipline, practice habits and performance confidence that sustained musical study builds.

Graduates work in music performance, music education, arts administration, broadcasting, translation and interpreting, international organisations, journalism, publishing and the cultural sector. Many go on to postgraduate study in music, musicology, performance, languages or arts management, and the combination of musical and linguistic expertise is a distinctive and valued profile in many cultural and international roles.