Bachelor of Music - Jazz Studies - Performance/Composition

The Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies - Performance/Composition is a four-year conservatory-style degree in a program with a long-standing reputation as one of Canada’s strongest jazz schools.

Training runs on daily practice and ensemble playing: private instrumental instruction, small and large jazz ensembles, improvisation across idioms, jazz harmony and theory, ear training and transcription, jazz history and repertoire, arranging and orchestration, composition, and recording and studio technique. Students perform continuously, both in scheduled ensembles and in Vancouver’s working venues, and graduate with recorded material as well as a transcript.

Entry is by audition and interview, which is the honest filter here — this is a program for musicians who already play at a serious level and want to become professional. The composition strand matters commercially: writing and arranging skills open scoring, production and commissioned work, which is where much of the sustainable income in music sits compared with performance alone.

CapU is a fully public teaching university on Vancouver’s North Shore — a Designated Learning Institution (DLI O19280078102) with university status since 2008. Classes are small, faculty teach rather than delegate to assistants, and tuition sits well below the big Vancouver research universities while the credential carries the same public-institution standing.

Its field maps to CIP 50.0903 (Music performance). As a bachelor’s degree, graduates are exempt from the November 2024 PGWP field-of-study restriction and may qualify for a Post-Graduation Work Permit of up to three years. Full-time on-campus study and graduation remain the conditions, and final decisions rest with IRCC.