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Church Music

The Church Music specialisation prepare students for professional employment as church musicians, typically in the Church of Sweden.

Organ is the primary instrument for church music students. The program also includes a strong choral conducting component. Service playing is taught as a separate sequence of courses. Other courses include voice, keyboard harmony, and organ pedagogy. You will also participate in courses together with students from other concentrations. The School of Music in Piteå features a fine collection of instruments including the large concert hall organ built by Gerald Woehl in Studio Acusticum.

You can also supplement your program of study through electives and supplementary courses.

The programme includes three main perspectives:

Musical profile (organ, liturgical organ, conducting, piano chords).
The craft of music (music theory, voice).
Music and society, artistic research process, and degree project.

If you continue your studies at the Master's level (120 credits) in solo organ or conducting, you can apply for a position as an A-level church musician in the Church of Sweden. Our teachers have extensive teaching experience, and several are active both nationally and internationally as musicians, composers or conductors.

Apply to Church Musician

Bachelor Programme in Music

A broad education

The bachelor's degree in church music is an introduction to the highly varied responsibilities of a parish musician. At the conclusion of your education you will be able to accompany yourself in a solo song during worship services, conduct a choir in Handel's Messiah or an Abba song, improvise an interlude during a hymn, arrange a choral piece for 3-part choir and guitar, or to teach an organ student her first prelude and fugue by Bach.

You can also select additional courses in areas of specific interest: singing, choral conducting, piano, music theory, improvisation and much more.

Fantastic instruments

Studio Acusticum (Woehl, 2012, IV / 140): Sweden's largest concert hall organ. Includes bells, xylophone, and celesta. Almost all of the organ repertoire is playable here, but the organ sounds particularly good in music written from the 19th century to the present.

Norrfjärden Church (Grönlunds, 1997, III / 36): A replica of a 17th-century Baroque organ originally found in the German Church in Stockholm. The original organ remains and was restored in two locations north of Piteå in Tornedalen. The Great and Pedal divisions are located in Övertorneå and the Rückpositiv is in Hietaniemi. The organ's meantone temperament is suitable for repertoire from all over Europe written before Johann Sebastian Bach's time. The organ is often used in teaching and concerts.

Orgelsalen (Grönlunds, 1989, III / 35): The three-manual Grönlund organ of the organ hall is eclectic in style and available for student concerts and teaching.

The Liturgical organ hall is the School of Music's little gem. A smaller concert hall with a two-manual baroque organ built by Robert Gustavsson, Härnösand (II, 15) and voiced by Mads Kjersgaard, one of Sweden's leading experts in baroque organ. The hall also houses a two-manual harpsichord.

Practice organs There are five additional practice organs at the School of Music. This means that there are always instruments available when you want to practice.