Master’s program about more than just music
The first ever degree in the Beatles was awarded this week to Canadian Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy. Liverpool Hope University launched the Beatles master’s degree program, the first of its kind, in 2009. Although she wasn’t an obsessive Beatles fan when she started her degree, she’ll be drawing on what she learned for a popular music course she will be teaching at Sheridan College in the fall. Describing the program she said it was more involved than listening to and studying Beatles music. “It’s really about history and genres of music and semiotics, which is the language of music and … how communities are forged with different identities happening because of the way music is delivered,” she said.