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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 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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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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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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Arts at Amherst
Amherst’s arts programs foster a lively environment for the multidisciplinary study, creation and presentation of the arts.
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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.