Melbourne Conservatorium
of Music

Our heritage

The Faculty was created in 2009 following the amalgamation of the University's Faculty of Music and Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts. It was renamed the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music in 2018 to reflect the primary undergraduate degree structures offered by the Faculty: the Bachelor of Music and the Bachelor of Fine Arts.

The Faculty is also home to the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, which works with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to identify, recruit and support potential and practicing Indigenous Artists to study and refine their academic and artistic skills.

The first Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne was awarded in 1879, and the Conservatorium was founded in 1894. Dame Nellie Melba laid the foundation stone for a permanent conservatorium building on the University’s Parkville campus in 1909, and the building was opened in 1913.

The Conservatorium today

The Conservatorium provides training in a comprehensive range of musical disciplines, including Music Performance, Composition, Jazz and Improvisation, Interactive Composition, Early Music, Musicology, Ethnomusicology, Music Therapy, Music Psychology and Performance Science and New Music.

Our internationally recognised teachers are committed to challenging and inspiring our students to create their own unique paths in music. To complement the knowledge and performance expertise on staff at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, our students also benefit from visiting performers and academics from around the world.

Much of the Conservatorium's teaching, research and performance takes place in, or near, the Ian Potter Southbank Centre on the University of Melbourne’s Southbank campus.

Our facilities on the University's Parkville campus, including Melba Hall, are also used for teaching, research and performances.