Oxford Brookes to close music department

Oxford Brookes University has announced plans to close its music department amid financial struggles.

A teach-out period will enable current students to complete their studies before all music provision ends in 2026. No new music students will be admitted from next academic year.

In an open letter addressed to alumni and friends, music department staff said: ‘As you know, music degrees have been under massive pressure across the country, with the number of students dwindling in the past 10 years, and Brookes hasn’t been immune to these trends, especially once the “cap on numbers” had been removed. Furthermore, the University’s decision to discontinue the combined-honours degrees, which many of you will have taken and which always were one of the glories of the university, further undermined our position.’

The decision comes as Brookes is set to open a dedicated performance space in its new multi-million-pound Headington Hill building next September, with staff saying ‘one of the ironies of Brookes history will be that the university will finally offer a proper performance space, at the same time that it is closing the doors to music students’.

Staff said the building of the performance space had led them to be ‘cautiously optimistic about the future’, despite challenges around student recruitment. ‘We were working on developing a suite of specialist music programmes to attract new students, reflecting the wide range of our teaching and research expertise in the department. Rather than giving us time to explore this properly, the university has decided it was not to be.’

In addition to winding down its music provision, Brookes announced plans to close its maths department and reduce salaried academic staff numbers across several programmes, including anthropology, English and creative writing, history, film and architecture.

The music department was opened in 1979 when Brookes was known as Oxford Polytechnic.