Contact
Department of Music
Goodspeed Hall, 3rd floor
1010 E. 59th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
Directions: From 59th street, go all the way through the archway to the quad. Turn left and you'll see the doors for Goodspeed Hall.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Department of Music FAQs provide answers to common questions on a range of topics, including undergraduate degrees and courses, graduate studies, exams, research opportunities, resources, performance, instruments and music, and music lessons.
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Faculty Projects & Recent Publications
The Department of Music showcases a dynamic culture of creativity, scholarship, and innovation. Faculty members are actively engaged in a wide range of artistic and academic work, including original compositions, performances, interdisciplinary collaborations, music education research, ethnomusicological studies, and critical scholarship. These projects and publications reflect the department’s commitment to advancing musical knowledge, enriching cultural dialogue, and fostering excellence in both practice and research.
Community Engagement
Community engagement opportunities within the Performance Program empower students and artists-in-residence to interact interdepartmentally on campus, in community spaces and along with people in the Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods, as citizen artists. Their community engagement activities provide a platform for their musical skills, talents and accolades to connect with and enrich the immediate and surrounding communities of the University of Chicago.
The ultimate goals of the Performance Program’s Community Engagement are the following:
Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence
In 2013, the University of Chicago created a new program, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, that would provide a permanent home for world-class musicians at the University of Chicago. Named for University of Chicago President Emeritus Don Randel, the residency program enables deep engagement between exceptional visiting musical ensembles and UChicago faculty, students and staff, as well as the surrounding Hyde Park community.
Sound Practices & Intermedia Lab
Sound Practices and Intermedia Lab (SPIL) is a vibrant hub for sound practices, composition, and intermedia practices at the University of Chicago. SPIL is comprised of three studios: Studio A (Production and Spatial Audio Lab), Studio B (Production and Synthesis Lab), and Studio C (Equipment Checkout Room). In addition to studio spaces, SPIL regularly produces performances, such as its upcoming event, Critical Sounds (formerly CHIMEFest), and engages in collaborative projects with artists across disciplines, both on campus and throughout Chicago.
Michael Suarez, S.J.: "The Book as Museum in Eighteenth-Century Europe"
Book historian Michael Suarez, S.J., examined how collections of antiquities in richly illustrated books, many calling themselves museums, flourished in the eighteenth century when the public museum became a significant cultural institution in western Europe. These beautiful books mobilize the museum, bringing new forms of knowledge organization to readers far and wide. The books display cultural capital and, often, political power as well. He used case studies from Florence, Paris, and Naples.
February 24, 2022
6 - 7:30 p.m. CDT
David Rubenstein Forum
David Ganz: "Where Did Newspaper Typeface Come From?"
David Ganz explored how influential scripts such as Caroline minuscule and Italian Humanistic served as models for typefaces like Times New Roman.
Peter Kornicki: Why Did Matsudaira Sadanobu Copy the Tale of the Genje Seven Times?"
Despite Japan’s Edo period's boom in commercial printing, Matsudaira Sadanobu, Japan's ruler from 1787-1793, hand-copied the Tale of Genji seven times. This highlights a fascinating contradiction: printed books were available, but many, including Sadanobu, clung to the art of manuscript writing. During his lecture, Peter Kornicki, one of the foremost experts in the history of the book in Japan, exposed the underworld of manuscript books, dealing with secret knowledge, shocking scandals, and obscure rituals.