The Major
The music major provides grounding in the theory and practice of music, and instruction in performance, composition and musical scholarship.
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Tools
We support a wide range of musical styles and encourage all students interested in making music to join us in a class or an ensemble appropriate to their level.
Department Highlights
The Curriculum
Anyone can take a course in music. Topics include composition, electronic music, ethnomusicology, history, improvisation, jazz, opera, performance, popular music and theory.
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Arts at Amherst
Together, Amherst’s arts programs host more than 300 events in the performing, literary and visual arts each year.
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Performance Opportunities
We support performance opportunities in early music, experimental music, jazz, new music, popular music, western classical music and world music.
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Amherst Ensembles
Student musicians make up our three large ensembles—Choral Society, Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble—and an array of smaller ensembles.
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Private Lessons
We offer private music lessons for beginners, intermediate and advanced performers taught by professional adjunct instructors.
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Music at Amherst Series
Our concert series brings internationally renowned musicians to campus for performances, master classes and lectures.
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Arms Music Center
The music building houses Buckley Recital Hall, as well as two large rehearsal rooms and practice facilities for student and faculty use.
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Current Courses
MUSI 113
Jazz Theory and Improvisation I
Description
Explore jazz harmonic and improvisational practice from both the theoretical and the applied standpoint, building toward a performance at the end of the semester.
MUSI 220
History of Opera
Description
Trace opera from its beginnings as a late-Renaissance experiment in re-creating Greek drama to its incarnations in the present day. Take an in-depth look at a few masterpieces.
MUSI 443
Repertoire and Analysis
Description
Study music by a wide variety of 19th-century composers, considering it from different analytical perspectives, including methods current in that century and those developed more recently.