The Department of Music encourages all students with an interest in music to join us as we explore a rich variety of ways to engage with music, whether as performers, listeners, music-makers, or scholars. Our offerings—including courses, ensembles, and individual lessons—are available to majors and non-majors alike. Students work closely with world-class musicians who engage them in rewarding classroom and performance experiences, and give each student personalized attention. The department offers a major in Music Studies and a major in Music, Sound, and Technology, as well as a minor in Music Studies.

Active professionally, members of the music faculty specialize and teach in many areas, including: composition, electronic music, music technology, music theory, conducting, ethnomusicology, instrumental and vocal performance, jazz arranging, music culture and history, recording, and orchestration. Faculty members mentor students with highly personalized instruction and provide substantive opportunities for performance, composition, music production, jazz composition and arranging, musicological research, music-theoretic research, and ethnomusicological fieldwork. They also offer an array of ensemble choices, such as orchestra, choir, jazz band, concert band, experimental music, and chamber ensembles.

The music department is dedicated to nurturing the musical talents of majors and non-majors alike by offering private lessons for credit. Music majors and minors are eligible for lessons on one or more instruments, or voice lessons, at no cost. With the generous support of the Jack Niblack '98 Music Lessons Program, students in the class of 2029 and beyond who are not music majors or minors may take lessons on an instrument of their choice, or voice lessons, for no cost, provided that they simultaneously enroll in an ensemble or music academic course during each of their first four semesters of no-cost lessons. Students will be charged a fee for concurrently taking lessons on a second instrument. After the fourth semester of no-cost lessons there are no further co-curricular requirements. There are no co-curricular requirements for students who pay all fees for private music lessons.

91³ΙΘΛ is an all-Steinway campus with superb recording and performing facilities. The music department is home to Fortune Recital Hall, Evans Hall, the Cummings Electronic Music Studio, the Elizabeth Gilbert Fortune Recording Studio, numerous practice rooms, and a wide collection of instruments.

Students who major or minor in music often pursue cross-curricular studies with departments, programs, centers, and pathways across campus, including Anthropology, Art, Computer Science, Dance, Theater, the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, and Creativity.

Our students have studied abroad and conducted research across the globe in such locations as Australia, Austria, China, Great Britain, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, New Zealand, Senegal, South Korea, and Vietnam.

Music students at 91³ΙΘΛ have won national awards, earned fellowships at prestigious graduate schools, and developed successful careers in music. Our alumni include professional performing artists, composers, music educators, professors, recording industry professionals, and administrators of arts organizations.