The balance between music, drama, pedagogy and science, as well as the commitment to excellence in both top-level and broad-based education, form the core of the HMTMH's self-image. To ensure this, the HMTMH offers a differentiated range of 33 degree programmes, supplemented by numerous master classes. In almost all areas, interdisciplinary work is conducted through interconnecting artistic and academic projects.

The focus of all activities is the support of individual talent: proven experts in their field promote the skills of each and every individual at HMTMH and provide impulses for the development of comprehensively educated personalities.

The HMTMH has always been internationally recognised in particular for its artistic education, the outstanding standard of which is reflected in the numerous prize-winners at national and international competitions and successful orchestral auditions. In instrumental training, professors teach all orchestral instruments except the harp - a clear commitment to the professional training of orchestral musicians in all its variety, through which the HMTMH achieves a top position in a nationwide comparison.

Important artistic impulses are provided by the institutes for chamber music, new music, early music and jazz|rock|pop. The Institute for the Early Promotion of Gifted Musicians has been dedicated to the professional training of national and international talents since 2000. The institutes for journalism and communication research, for music education research, for music physiology and musician's medicine, for musicology as well as the research centre for music and gender are also strong in research. A professorship in ethnomusicology links the HMTMH with the "Center for World Music" at the University of Hildesheim Foundation. The European Centre for Jewish Music is exemplary for the various special collections of the HMTMH.

Around 500 public events per year also make HMTMH one of the largest cultural organisers in Lower Saxony. In order to sustainably strengthen the cultural region of Hanover and Lower Saxony as a land of music, Lower Saxony's only university of music enters into a constant exchange with society, cultivates networks and initiates a wide variety of music-mediating projects, amongst others with Hanover's theatres and opera houses, the NDR, regional event organisers as well as scientific and media institutes.