The three-year first cycle is the foundation for learning to be a performer and leads to the DNSPM. The teachers, exceptional artists and teachers, guide the students in the development of their practice and their relationship with their instrument. At the end of their studies, students reach a professional level and can perform in a wide range of fields, from solo to orchestral and chamber music. The wide range of fields explored means that they are able to tackle all repertoires, from baroque to contemporary.

Instrumental lessons, which make up a large part of the training, play a central role, enabling each student to develop and express his or her artistic sensibilities. In order to train artists who are open to the world, this teaching takes a broad perspective, combining theoretical aspects (musical training, analysis, history of music) with practical aspects (chamber music and orchestra). Various options can be added to this general curriculum to meet individual aspirations, always with a view to training well-rounded, fulfilled artists. Seminars, lectures and master classes are regularly offered on a wide variety of themes. Performers who so wish can also complete their studies by taking the DE (teacher training) course, or the joint course with Sorbonne University leading to a degree in music and musicology.

Lasting two years, the second cycle offers performers the opportunity to achieve the highest standards in the practice of their art, with autonomy and a critical sense. Through intensive individual and group practice, students are helped to assert and express their artistic personality. The field of exploration is particularly wide-ranging, enabling each student to forge his or her own repertoire, whether as a soloist, chamber musician or orchestral player. The end-of-year recital, the high point of the course, gives each student the opportunity to develop and perform his or her own programme in public. By the end of the course, artists will have the resources they need to continue their development in complete autonomy. The acquisition of essential tools and skills for managing a career and projects is designed to facilitate their professional development.

Orchestral training is also offered through orchestral sessions conducted by guest conductors from the professional world. There is also an introduction to research, including the acquisition of methodology (first year) and personal study work (second year). Various options can be added to this general curriculum, to meet the aspirations of each student, always with a view to training complete and fulfilled artists.

In addition to their studies, instrumentalists can take an introduction to the viola da gamba as a stylistic and technical complement to their main discipline.

The improvisation/interpretation/composition workshop is a place for guided research where students explore, invent, refine their awareness and the accuracy of their gestures in order to be as close as possible to their expressive intentions and interpretive desires. Improvisation and composition are also times for learning how to look at others, read, identify, name and glimpse the diversity of approaches. In improvisation, whether individual or collective, targeted instructions open up a range of possibilities so that everyone can find their own understanding and imagination. The composition develops a form of writing to make this material legible and sensitive. There are a variety of approaches to composition: a more 'instinctive' structure, manipulation of certain compositional parameters, use of randomness, structures borrowed from other disciplines.

The aim of this course is to acquire a detailed understanding of the tonal system through harmonisation and arrangement techniques, as well as a solid grasp of musical aesthetics, more specifically those of Bach, Mozart, Schumann and Fauré.

Through a series of analyses of works and weekly writing assignments such as the production of chorales, contrapuntal basses, classical and romantic melodies for string quartet or solo piano, the composition of two-part inventions, minuets and free pieces, students will develop their inner hearing, their perception of form and their imagination.

At the same time, part of the year is devoted to considering the wider resonance of tonal harmony in contemporary music, film and different styles of popular music.