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Music

Undergraduate

We regard the study of music as an artistic discipline that has an essential role in liberal arts education. Through courses in music history, theory, ethnomusicology, performance, and composition, we will foster your creative, intellectual, and critical abilities.

A piece of music on a music stand in front of a student playing the violin

Program Overview

The music curriculum is designed for a broad range of interests, backgrounds, and career goals. The integration of creating, performing, and thinking about music fosters musical fluency across multiple styles and cultural contexts.

Majors, minors, and students with a passion for music are active performers, scholars, leaders, and creators of music. A faculty of national and international standing encourages you to unite your technical development with a broadening of intellectual horizons, sharpening of critical skills, and an awareness of the role of music in communities both local and global.

Members of the Mount Holyoke Orchestra on the steps of Abbey Chapel

Ensembles

We have a number of instrumental and vocal ensembles, ranging from Big Band, West African Music Ensemble, and Klezmer Ensemble to Symphony Orchestra, Chorale, and Glee Club. Many of our ensembles are open to all members of the community.

Explore our Ensembles
A student playing the flute

Performance Studies

Performance study is a popular and important part of the offerings of the music department. At our liberal arts college, performance study goes beyond learning to use your voice or your instrument and becomes the opportunity to assimilate all the information you know and are learning about the historical context and harmonic construction of the music. All students are eligible for lessons and there are many students enrolled in performance study who are not music majors or minors.

Learn about Performance Study

Community Voices

Spotlight on Music students and alums

Mackenzie 鈥淢ack鈥 Windus 鈥24

The chemistry of leadership

Mackenzie 鈥淢ack鈥 Windus 鈥24

she/her

David Sanford

Our musicians take classes in all areas

David Sanford, Elizabeth T. Kennan Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Music

Elizabeth (Zab) Johnson 鈥94, Executive Director and Senior Fellow

An uncommon education: pursuing music and science

Elizabeth (Zab) Johnson 鈥94, Executive Director and Senior Fellow

Explore more stories

Our courses

Introductory courses offer a solid foundation in musicianship, including music reading, sight singing, ear training, and critical listening.

We offer intermediate through advanced courses in music history, ethnomusicology, theory and analysis, performance, conducting, and composition.

Advanced (300-level) courses are usually taken only in the senior year.

Classroom courses in music theory or history may be eligible for transfer credit. Performance credits such as music lessons or ensemble participation are not eligible for transfer credit.

Selecting courses in your first year

Introductory classes in fundamentals, music history and literature, and composition are offered to students with little or no experience; those with more experience may be able to exempt prerequisites and enter directly into the music theory or music history course sequence.

If you are interested in a music major or minor, you should take or exempt Music 100, Rudiments of Music, or Music 131, Basic Musicianship (Rudiments with a lab component), in the fall of your first year so that you may enroll in 231 in the spring of your first year. If you are a spring entrant, you should exempt Music 100 when you arrive on campus so that you may enroll in 231.

First-year students may also take:

  • 102 Music and Technology
  • 103 History of Jazz
  • 171RM Race in the American Musical
  • FYS-110-DV Adventures in Music (First-Year Seminar)
  • FYS-110-MM Music in Women's Communities (First-Year Seminar)
  • FYS-110-FN First Nights (First-Year Seminar)
  • 226 World Music
  • Individual Performance Study
  • Ensembles

Courses and Requirements

Learning Goals

The Department of Music developed discipline-specific learning objectives based on the 网红爆料 learning goals. These objectives comprise the following:

  • Synthesize information obtained through the study of music theory, ethnomusicology, music history, composition, music technology, and performance, and achieve fluency with musical language in a range of styles and cultural contexts.
  • Perform works of all periods with attention to performance practices of appropriate periods.
  • Address the structure of a musical work with tools appropriate to its historical context.
  • Understand the evolution of musical style and the changing roles of composers, performers, patrons and audience from the Middle Ages to the present.
  • Increase familiarity with and facility in the use of primary materials for musicological and/or theoretical research, as well as in the critical evaluation of published scholarship.
  • Comprehend the prominent stylistic trends and compositional techniques of the 20th and 21st centuries, including an understanding of the relationships of such genres as popular music and jazz to the social contexts that helped produce and shape them.
  • Realize the power of music to enhance or alter the content and structure of text or motion picture.
  • Achieve musical awareness and critical perception through the integration of thinking about and performing music.
  • Broaden musical interests to include non-Western repertoires in their respective cultural contexts.
  • Encounter non-Western music through alternative methodologies and performance experiences which, in turn, inform the more traditional study of music.
  • Use classical training to go beyond the printed page into folk traditions, learning to employ less familiar techniques that are traditional in the vast array of world musics.
  • Discover the ways in which a Mount Holyoke music major might be important after graduation.
  • Gain sufficient experience in music theory, history, composition, music technology, and performance to qualify for graduate study.

Contact Us

Department of Music

The Music Department offers a program exploring the history, theory, literature, performance and cross-cultural study of music.

Next Steps

Apply to Mount Holyoke

Mount Holyoke seeks intellectually curious applicants who understand the value of a liberal arts education and are driven by a love of learning. As a women's college that is gender diverse, we welcome applications from female, trans and non-binary students.

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Financing your education

Everyone鈥檚 financial situation is unique, and we鈥檙e here to make sure cost does not get in the way of an exceptional education.

Affording Mount Holyoke Tuition and Fees