Above: A group of music history master's and doctoral students pictured in April 2014. Front row, from left to right: Emily Hagen, Cole Ritchie, Stephanie Kisling, Amy Cooper, Clare Carrasco, and Megan Varvir Coe. Back row, from left to right: Andrea Recek, Robert Anderson, Jessica Stearns, and Abigail Chaplin-Kyzer.
Building on a long tradition of excellence, our graduate programs in musicology prepare students for careers in scholarship and teaching at colleges and universities within the vibrant environment of the College of Music. Our internationally renowned faculty cultivates a wide range of intellectual approaches and research practices, including source and archival research, historical performance practices, hermeneutics, religious and cultural history, and critical studies in politics, gender, and ethnicity.
We offer a Bachelor of Arts in Music with an emphasis in Music History and Literature, a Master of Arts in Music with a Concentration in Musicology, a Master of Arts in Music with a Concentration in Musicology and Early Music Performance emphasis, and a Ph.D. in Music with concentration in musicology.
The area’s dedication to scholarship and publication facilitates active engagement in broader conversations within the College and beyond. The interaction between research, performance, and teaching finds an immediate expression in our graduate programs and lies at the heart of our courses. These courses are diverse in their approaches and perspectives yet share a dual focus on music, considered on the one hand as a set of texts, and on the other hand as an ensemble of social practices. They critically elaborate upon composition, performance, reception, and hearing by presenting music as the culturally situated product of all four activities.