Alumni Relations

Honorary Degrees

Gallery of Honorees

Honorary degrees are granted to those of great scholarly or artistic achievement. They must be approved by the Faculty Committee on Honorary Degrees, the President of the University, and the Board of Trustees. For a complete list of honorary degrees awarded by the University of Rochester, including PhDs in Music, please click here.


2017 Chick Corea Steve Gadd


2015 Robert Freeman


2014 Sir James Galway Itzhak Perlman Andre Previn Mark Volpe


2013 Douglas Lowry Jessye Norman


2012 George Walker


2011 Renée Fleming


2010 Ron Carter


2009 Christopher Seaman


2008 David Brubeck


2007 Marian McPartland


2006 Joseph Turrin


2001 John T. Williams


2000 Catharine (Gleason) Crozier


1998 Teresa Stratas Christoph von Dohnanyi


1997 Milton Babbitt


1996 Robert D. Levin Norio Ohga David Joel Zinman


1994 Leonard Slatkin


1991 Alice Tully


1990 Maxwell Lemuel Roach


1989 Nicolas Slonimsky


1988 Fredrick Fennell William Warfield


1987 Georg Solti


1985 Charles Frank Mangione


1981 Donald J. Grout


1978 Allen Forte


1976 Aaron Copland


1974 Goddard Lieberson


1973 Edward T. Cone Fernand Gillet Ralph Kirkpatrick Alec Wilder


1972 Krzysztof Penderecki William Schuman Rudolph Serkin Isaac Stern Shinichi Suzuki


1959 Joseph Edgar Maddy


1958 Alan Hovhaness


1956 Ernest MacMillan


1955 Harold Spivacke


1954 Herbert Elwell


1952 Guy Fraser Harrison


1951 Fred Waring


1949 Ettore Massoleni


1948 Victor Alessandro


1947 Douglas Stuart Moore


1946 Roy Ellsworth Harris


1944 Quincy Porter


1942 Ernest Hutcheson


1941 Frederick August Stock


1940 Serge Koussevitsky


1939 Deems Taylor


1938 Rudolph Ganz


1934 Leo Sowerby


1933 Randall Thompson


1932 Daniel Gregory Mason


1929 Earl Vincent Moore