Music and Performance Taster Days

Our taster days offer your students the best way to experience University life.

We hope you can join us on campus for one of them. Email [email protected] to find out how we can support your travel.

Taster days

Performance Taster Day

11 March 2026, Cambridge

Whether your students are budding actors, dancers, singers, or all three, our Performance Taster Day is the perfect opportunity to explore how a Performance degree can help shape a future for stage, screen or behind the scenes as well as developing transferable skills.

Your students will get to experience what University training is really like in our professional standard facilities including our 260-seater Mumford Theatre. They’ll be guided by our expert team in workshop sessions, get advice on how to prepare the best audition, find out more about the industry as well as meeting current students to get insight into Uni life.

Graduate Showcase

Every day 5 - 12 June 2026, Cambridge

Join us for our annual Graduate Showcase. Your students will be inspired by what they’ll be able to achieve by the end of a creative degree as well as gaining insight into the outcomes of specific subjects. Covering work from Fashion to Film, Graphics to Games, Animation to Art and everything in between, there’s lots to explore. We'll set your students challenges to help them connect with the work. They can also chat to some of our graduating students and find out more about the opportunities HE has to offer.

Taster sessions

Online or in person at your school or college* or at ARU we have a range of sessions for you to choose from. They can be delivered as a standalone session or as part of a build-your-own-taster day.

Production Taster: Staging a Show — 60-90 mins

Musical Theatre is about putting a show on its feet and sending it out to the audience. We’ll learn an ensemble number and one of our in-house directors will stage it with you. It could be the opening of Waitress or Wicked or something of your own choosing, but it will challenge you to start delivering to industry standards.

How can performers use their skills to make a difference in their community? — 60-90 mins

We’ll look at a number of techniques to explore people's life experiences and social problems and develop ways to present these in meaningful performances, showing drama can create positive change and improve lives.

Performing Shakespeare — 60-90 mins

Using a comic scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream and a supernatural scene from Macbeth, we’ll explore ways of unlocking Shakespeare's language and turn his imagery into two short performances, using a combination of voice and physical theatre.

Exploring room acoustics through listening and measurement

Using both our ears and equipment, we’ll explore acoustical phenomena such as reverberation, flutter echoes, or standing waves and understand how the physical properties of a room affect how we perceive the sound generated by instruments or loudspeakers.

Collaborative studio recording and mixing of (visiting) student bands

This workshop enables visiting students to collaborate as musicians, music producers or sound engineers. You are welcome to bring your musical projects and get them recorded and/or mixed in our industry-standard sound recording studios with the help of our expert staff and students.

Music, Improvisation and Songwriting

An interactive workshop that introduces the concept and practical application of improvisation in music and songwriting. A fun and informative approach to improvising using basic scales, chords, dynamics and rhythms, and how to apply them in the creative process of songwriting.

This is just a small selection of the activities we can offer. For more info and to arrange your personalised sessions get in touch: [email protected]

*Not all sessions can be delivered online or at your school or college. But we will work with you to shape the best experience for your students based on the delivery format. Timings are approximate.

Meet our staff team

Richard Edwards: immersive sound, contemporary music production, composing for film, TV and games, and sound design for art multimedia projects.

Dr Chanan Hanspal: composition, guitar, music performance, music analysis, jazz improvisation, the music of Frank Zappa.

David Jackson: actor training, conservatoire, neurology and psychology of acted emotion, physical and mental health in actor training.

Pippa O'Brien: musical theatre directing, performance and teaching, vocal coaching, actor training, rehearsal processes.

Neil Sheffield: science underpinning performance, ethical approach to actor training.