The Future of Music at ANU: A Message to Our Community

To our Community,

We know there’s been confusion and concern in the media about the future of the School of Music and two separate processes have become conflated. 

First and most importantly: ANU Music is not closing. We are deeply committed to ensuring Music continues to thrive as a vital part of our University: supporting students, enriching campus life, and contributing to the cultural life of Canberra and beyond.

A new School of Creative and Cultural Practice is proposed by the College of Arts and Social Sciences Change Management Proposal, as part of Renew ANU. This School would bring together music, visual arts, design, heritage and museum studies, art history and theory, and creative research into a vibrant, future-focused hub.

The proposal is not a reduction in ambition for the creative arts at ANU. It is a statement of intent: to invest in creative disciplines in a way that reflects how they are evolving and how students, communities, and industries engage with them today. 

Structurally, it would also align with other successful multidisciplinary Schools across the humanities at ANU.

You can read the full change proposal and provide feedback here. Feedback closes 24 July, 2025.

Separately, we’ve been reflecting on and redesigning the Bachelor of Music to launch in 2026. This is part of our regular academic planning, not the broader change proposal. 

The new program will support a broad range of student pathways - including performance - and reflect primary ways music is made today: collaborative, creative, and closely connected to technology and media.

If you are currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Music or one of our majors, you’ll continue under your current program, including one-to-one instrumental or vocal tuition where that applies.

If you’re a future student, the proposed Bachelor of Music redesign will retain opportunities for performance and ensemble work while embedding music-making in a broader and more flexible curriculum; one that aligns with the diverse pathways our students pursue. 

Our evolving program will continue to value the close relationship between music education and public performance, and we are confident it will continue to produce skilled, adaptable, and imaginative musicians, composers, creative and critical thinkers and researchers, prepared for the multiple career paths our graduates take, in music and beyond. 

Flagship ensembles like the ANU Orchestra and Jazz Orchestra will continue, as will the Community Music Program and our key partnerships with Canberra Symphony Orchestra, National Folk Festival, and Canberra International Music Festival.

Our focus is to deliver an outstanding, contemporary, and flexible music education—now and into the future.