Our Story
We are a department of music with a unique and committed focus on contemporary classical music, building on a long and distinguished institutional history.
We offer comprehensive instruction across four traditional musical disciplines: performance, composition, musicology, and music theory, granting undergraduate and graduate degrees. We sponsor and present dozens of student, faculty and in-house professional, and visiting-artist concerts each year.
The department boasts a core performance faculty of seven full-time individuals in the areas of clarinet, trumpet, piano, percussion, voice, violin/viola and violoncello -- all versatile, virtuoso musicians with broad interests, but sharing a deep and central focus on the music of our time.
Beyond this core performance faculty, the department features an excellent part-time faculty filling out the instrumental complement, and also including such non-traditionally orchestral instruments as classical and electric guitar, organ and harpsichord, electric bass, classical and jazz saxophone, jazz piano, and more.
The Center for 21st Century Music provides a framework for new musical creation and presentation, while the Ph.D. program in music composition has evolved to become one of the most internationally competitive and renowned.
A generous endowment established by Frederick and Alice Slee sponsors a remarkable annual cycle of all the Beethoven string quartets, while supporting the historical and continuing excellence of the Music Theory program, including its newly founded Slee Institute for Tonal Harmony.
