Your study programme

The different approaches inspire me in my own composition process

Isabella

Student

I chose this master because I wanted to develop and shape my artistic project as an interdisciplinary composer and visual artist, and polish the areas in which I needed more work.The programme is versatile and flexible. The fact that you as a student have 100% control on how to build your own syllabus, and the possibility to use your budget with external teachers, is very interesting.Something I also like about Fontys and I think it's quite unique to how it works, is that a lot of trust is put in the student with the facilities, and the campus feels like a tool box with so many possibilities. I loved that even though I was in the music department, I was able to use the dance rooms, reserve the photography studios, etc. The atmosphere is free, independent and collaborative.

The flexibility and independence you get is the most challenging thing in this specific program. Because all the decisions are completely in your hands, and there is a lot of self work. You have to be the one who contacts the professors (Internal or external) if you are new to the country and don’t already have a list with possible teachers you want to learn from with their contact information, then it can be quite overwhelming.There are not many group classes, so sometimes it feels like a lonely ride, and you have to be your main driving force, deciding where to go and how to find people to collaborate with,. Even though I was a bit of a lonely wolf, I did get to collaborate in some projects with some Fontys students which I’m grateful for.

Another challenge I had while studying specifically in the first year, was discovering what I wanted to learn from my professors. Because it's not like in the bachelor that they teach you theory on how to compose and there is a syllabus to follow, here I had some amazing professors with so much information in them, and what I found the most difficult was finding what I wanted to ask them specifically, what I could learn from each one. Having total control of what you want to learn can be exhausting haha.

Inside Fontys I had classes with Anthony Fiumara, Celia Swart and Maino Remmers. Each one helped me differently with their own different approach to music and composition. But the combination of these three different approaches inspired me in my own composition process. Because each one gave me different tools, and where one tool didn’t work another one did. It was refreshing to be able to learn from the three of them.

(photo: Gerardo Segura)