The Fine Arts Department maintains spaces dedicated to classroom teaching, individual practice, group rehearsal, and performance in music. In addition, the department sponsors the Chorale, Concert Band, Jazz Orchestra, String Ensemble, and Akoma Drummers. All of these groups perform on campus and tour.

The course offerings in music focus on understanding music as a liberal art. Music is a central pursuit of human culture related to other fields in the humanities that study the variety and meaning of human artistic expression. Through the study of music one can gain insight into many other aspects of culture. Music majors will by senior year have knowledge and experience of the theory and analysis of music, familiarity with the styles and repertory of European music from the Middle Ages through the present and characteristics of American and non-Western music. They will have had performance experience in music of various styles and they will have educated tastes and opinions about wide range of musical repertory.

The Fine Arts Department offers students the opportunity for private study for credit with a local teacher on a variety of musical instruments or in voice. The additional fee for private study under this program is partially subsidized for music majors and minors (instrument or voice) and for theatre majors (voice lessons only). For more information on precise fees and qualification for the subsidy please contact the Registrar’s office. Registration is done in person at the registrar’s office after the student secures an instructor during the regular registration period in the semester before the lessons take place.

Students transferring into Music from other majors after the sophomore year must have an overall GPA of 2.0 and permission of the department chair.

Note: Music majors are encouraged to explore double majors or major-minor combinations in any of the other concentrations that lend themselves to music, i.e. computer science, education, journalism, history, etc.