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The Department of Music’s outstanding academic programs challenge students to consider the reciprocity between music and such other fields as visual culture, politics, literature, and religion. Professors and students participate in intensive inquiry and exploration, pursuing musical study according to the University’s credo crescat scientia vita excolatur—Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched.

Professor Travis A. Jackson leads a course in World Music
Photo: Daniel Collins

Message from the Chair

Welcome to the pages of the Music Department at the University of Chicago! Whether you’re considering applying to a program, browsing for interesting talks or concerts, wondering about curricular requirements, or looking for opportunities to play music, these pages will help you find answers. All of us, faculty and students, strive to continually renew the traditions of original scholarship and composition that have characterized the Department for many years, and to complement these with performance.

Positioned at the heart of a world-renowned academic institution, the Department of Music offers graduate degrees in Composition, Ethnomusicology, and Music History and Theory. The Department also offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree in Music.

Beyond the classroom, the Music Department boasts a thriving performance program encompassing four choirs, two orchestras, two jazz ensembles, a middle east music ensemble, a gamelan, an early music ensemble, a large wind ensemble, and programs in chamber music and piano. The Department also has in residence several professional groups, including the 46-year-old Contempo (formerly the Contemporary Chamber Players)--a world renowned new music collective whose repertory includes the new compositions of our graduate-level composers--plus four ensembles-in-residence, all of which contribute to the undergraduate and graduate studies: the Pacifica Quartet; the new music ensemble eighth blackbird; the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the early music ensemble The Newberry Consort. All these activities in ensemble deepen the talents of students, faculty, staff, and community, forming cornerstone of cultural life at the University.

Martha Feldman
Department Chair

© 2008 The University of Chicago
Department of Music
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637