As a composition major, you will gain a foundation in traditional Western art music, while having the opportunity to explore jazz, electronic music, film scoring, and other media. While taking courses such as orchestration, counterpoint, and arranging, you will hear your music performed by highly skilled musicians on a regular basis. In addition to having individual lessons with our award-winning faculty, you will have the opportunity to work with renowned composers through our Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition series. Each year, composers such as George Lewis, Thomas Simaku, Chaya Czernowin, Alvin Singleton, and Chinary Ung present master classes, critique student works, and give lectures on their own work.
Along with our broad-based approach to composing, you can take advantage of the College’s other reputable programs. The School of Communications film students are constantly seeking student composers to score their films; performers in the musical theater program are available to perform student composers’ works in that medium; and the recording technology program provides access to students and facilities, resulting in excellent recordings of your music. To facilitate all this, there is a large technology laboratory, a technology workroom designed just for composers, two electronic music studios and several sound studios.
Composition students can enroll in one of four tracks, three that combine composition with an in-depth student of an instrument or voice (the instrumental track, the piano track, and the voice track), and one that focuses on just composition (the non-performance track).
View the degree schematics here.
Our alumni include film composers working in Los Angeles and composers for the stage in New York City. Our students also find themselves perfectly positioned to continue their studies in graduate programs in institutions such as Harvard, the Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Chicago.