It also wishes to further strengthen cross-disciplinary links to other programs including Media Arts and other School of Fine Arts programs. The Department also seeks to develop a broader emphasis in music pedagogy. The curriculum content and sequence are designed to prepare the student to become a competent teacher, performer, and scholar. Upon graduation, the student should possess the required intellectual skills, creative idealism, and ability to do research that is the mark of the artist, as well as a strong sense of discipline and ability to self-assess. Admission to the Department of Music is determined by audition or other assessments of potential for success.
Students complete rigorous core requirements prior to being admitted to upper-division study.
Student progress is assessed on a daily basis in lessons, studies, classrooms, and performances, and each student performs a divisional jury at the end of each semester. Upper divisional jury performances take place upon completion of the lower-division core and performance juries. Practicing students, and even seasoned musicians, are constantly faced with the need to exercise critical thinking, reasoning, synthesis, and decision making when it comes to creating, recreating, and polishing the process of investigating and performing music. These skills are required by the nature of the artistic discipline itself but particularly so under the tutelage of experienced, knowledgeable professionals. The creation and performance aspects are indeed the venue for the synthesis of the total understanding of music.