What will you learn?
Please note: This programme is being discontinued. From the 2025–2026 academic year onwards, no new students will be admitted.
The core of the master’s programme The Sound of Innovation at ArtEZ is a journey of discovery and invention. Your personal interests and passions are the starting point. Research, collaboration (with fellow students and other disciplines), music technology and experimentation are central to the curriculum.
The programme begins close to home: with yourself. You explore your own strengths, what drives you, what your unique creative gifts are and the role music can play in your professional life. You reflect on your qualities and expand them with expertise, entrepreneurship and experience, while developing a network that helps you realise your true potential. In the next phase, you work from a broader perspective: you learn to operate within specific cultural, social and economic contexts and how to challenge existing boundaries.
Curriculum
The master’s programme The Sound of Innovation in Enschede consists of three different components: parts that you shape yourself in your own way, and parts that are already structured for you.
In the Innovation Lab you focus on practical experience, research and development. Starting from your own strengths and interests, you work together with your fellow students on the development of innovative concepts and products, with an emphasis on:
- Stimulating and harnessing creativity
- Concept development and imagineering
- Project management
- Presentation and performance
Together, you generate new ideas, explore them and, where possible, find ways to put them into practice. You are supported by a team of lecturers who specialise in the various disciplines and subjects relevant to the Innovation Lab. The process is interactive: you help decide which guest lecturers to invite and which themes and topics you want to address.
In the individual track, you choose your own classes and modules. You decide what you want to focus on: it all depends on what you are working on and what you need. Lecturers are available to support and guide you in shaping your track and making choices. You can select courses and individual modules from other (master’s) programmes, such as Music Therapy or MediaMusic.
In your second year, you receive a personal budget that you can use to fund masterclasses, workshops or external coaching of your choice.
In Connecting the Dots, you meet – and collaborate with – other music master’s students at ArtEZ. Connecting the Dots consists of a project week, several workshops and the course Meet the Master.
Connecting the Dots is all about exchange, collaboration and connection: you get a taste of other (music) disciplines beyond your own field and benefit from working with makers who, just like you, are in the process of developing their own professional practice. The theme and working methods of the project week are decided together with the other master’s students.
In 2022–2023, the project week revolved around moving images. Inspiration and guidance came from composer Jacob ter Veldhuis (JacobTV), who immersed the students for three days in October in his visual world of grooving, speech-sample-based boombox compositions, colourful orchestral works and his reality opera THE NEWS.
The students worked in groups on their own concepts, coached by visual artist Donna Verheijden, composer and vocalist Brechtje van Dijk, improvisation specialist Jasper le Clercq and dramaturg Cecile Brommer. The project concluded with a performance at Focus Filmtheater in Arnhem.
Other examples from previous years include a collaboration with the organisation Sounds of Change, who introduced students to their specific ways of working, and a project week on the theme of Grief, with guest lecturers from music therapy, theatre and design.
Research
The Sound of Innovation does not have a separate course or module labelled “research”: instead, research is embedded throughout the entire curriculum, with specialised lecturers who train and support you.
Throughout the programme you are encouraged to ask yourself questions such as:
- Why do I want to develop this?
- If this is what I want to achieve, what do I need? From whom?
- Which problems need to be solved?
Whatever your goals, doing research becomes an integral part of the process of realising them.
Interdisciplinary communication
As an innovator applying musical concepts in other fields, you work with experts from a range of disciplines, such as healthcare professionals, engineers, teachers or economists. During the programme, you learn to speak the language of different fields – and thus how to communicate your ideas and initiate meaningful, productive crossovers.
Music master’s programmes at ArtEZ
The master’s programme The Sound of Innovation is based in Enschede, where the focus lies on innovation and the development of creative music solutions for different domains. ArtEZ also offers music master’s programmes at two other locations: Zwolle and Arnhem.
In the music master’s programmes in Zwolle, the focus is on performance and curation, supporting you in developing into the best possible version of yourself.
In the master’s programme in Arnhem, the emphasis is on performance and creation, by combining experimentation with expression.
Whichever graduation route you choose, you are encouraged to make use of the expertise and facilities at all three locations to shape your own unique graduation profile as a Master of Music.
