Musicology
Master's Degree in Ethnomusicology Comes to Eastman
The richly diverse activities of the musicology department reflect the duality of performance and research inherent in a comprehensive music school. On the one hand, the department maintains a graduate program for students pursuing the MA/PhD in musicology and the MA in ethnomusicology. On the other hand, it offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate music history courses for students in all other departments of the School, whether in BM, MM, MA, DMA, or PhD curricula. It also sponsors three performing ensembles.
All undergraduates take the music history sequence of courses as part of the core curriculum. This sequence devotes most of its attention to an overview of the major styles, genres, and composers of Western art music, from the Middle Ages to the present. In addition, selected examples of folk, popular, non-Western, and other musical traditions are explored, both for their inherent interest and for the ways they enhance an understanding of Western art music. Elective courses extend and supplement these required courses.
Graduate students in majors other than musicology take enriched courses in the music of various historical periods (e.g., Renaissance) and/or seminars developed specifically for them, on such topics as "American Musics," "Haydn's Chamber Music," "The Romantic Symphony," "20th-Century Russians," and "Musics Along the Silk Road."
Students in the MA/PhD program in musicology have their own seminars (though these are open to qualified students from other departments as well). Interdisciplinary seminars abound. Recent and forthcoming offerings include "Hildegard von Bingen," "Musical Patronage in the Renaissance," "Reading Mozart's Operas," "Music, Gender, and Ritual," "African Music and the West," and "Kurt Weill and his Contemporaries."
Musicology faculty and students collaborate with performers and composers in an interactive learning environment. The music theory program at Eastman is particularly strong, providing a welcome complement to musicological study.
MA/PhD students in musicology often take courses outside of music at the University of Rochester River Campus, and may even develop the equivalent of a "minor" in some area such as German literature, American studies, or critical and cultural theory. At Eastman, musicology students may elect studio lessons (instrumental, vocal, or conducting) as part of their regular course of study. Any Eastman student may perform in one of the department's two ensembles: the gamelan Lila Muni (directed by Ellen Koskoff); or the African mbira ensemble (directed by Martin Scherzinger).
Eastman has an exceptionally large and diverse faculty of full-time musicologists, all of whom are prominent researchers and authors at the forefront of their fields. They publish their research widely and present scholarly papers, essays, and other projects in a variety of public venues. Central to the work of the musicology department are the rich resources of the Eastman School: the top-level studio and academic faculty; over 700 concerts a year; visiting artists and lecturers (including musicologists); well-equipped classrooms and technological facilities; an early-music instrumentarium including a 5-octave fortepiano, a double-manual pedal clavichord, and several harpsichords in different styles; and the remarkable holdings of Eastman's Sibley Music Library.