Department Chair: Professor Ted Conner
Professor: Murphy
Assistant Professors: Ardizzoia, Hartford, Jackson
The music department approaches the study of music as a process that is creative, analytical, intellectual, and experiential. Our interdisciplinary curriculum is designed to encourage fluid movement between the sub-disciplines of music—composition, ethnomusicology, history, performance, and theory—to provide students with the skills to think critically about the ways in which music is historically and culturally situated and the implications that has for studying and making music. More specifically, students engage with aesthetic and ethical values of cultures across the globe through thoughtful performance, informed scholarship, and diverse approaches to composition, preparing students for the music-making and music scholarship of the 21st century.
The interdisciplinary nature of musical training makes it excellent preparation for a number of careers. Students learn broadly transferable skills—critical and analytical thinking, close reading, strong writing and oral communication skills—that prepare them for post-graduate careers in a number of fields. Recent graduates have gone on in performance, musicology, composition, music education, and music therapy, but also in higher education administration, medicine, law school, and the business sector.
Muhlenberg’s music department is an unusually large and active one for a liberal arts college. There are twelve performing ensembles, and the department presents over eighty concerts each year. We engage with a range of repertory from our early music ensemble, Collegium musicum, to our annual Contemporary Music Festival. Recent guest artists who have performed concerts and led student masterclasses include Dr. Marcía Porter, the keynote speaker and singer in our Festival of African-American Poets and Composers, and the new-music percussion ensemble Clocks in Motion featured in our Contemporary Music Festival. We also hosted Baroque violinist Beth Wenstrom, harpsichordist Stephen Gamboa-Diaz, Brazilian percussion specialist Scott Kettner, and Hindustani sarod master Ken Zuckerman for performances and masterclasses. The diversity of our course offerings, our ensembles, and our guest artists empowers students to pursue a broad range of interests during their study at Muhlenberg.
Honors Program
An Honors Thesis is a substantial undertaking, an in-depth scholarly examination of a narrowly defined research area through close work with a faculty member that leads to original scholarly work. An Honors Thesis is scholarly work rather than performance, although performers and composers may choose to undertake a thesis. Students may choose to do their research in ethnomusicology, music history, or music theory. The thesis should be the length of a substantial journal article in the field, from thirty-five to seventy pages in length, and they should pursue a subject of the student’s own interest in consultation with the advising faculty member. Honors
Theses are strongly recommended for students who are considering graduate school in ethnomusicology, musicology, and music theory.
Students accepted into the Honors Program will present their work in a thesis conversation before three faculty members who will constitute a thesis committee. Two of these faculty must be in music. For more information on the Honors Program in Music, students should refer to the Student Handbook.
Music Education
There are currently a limited number of music majors who are also participating in the teacher certification program at Moravian College. The requirements for teacher certification are available upon request from the Department of Music. Students intending to enter the music education certification program in collaboration with Moravian College must register for Engaging with Music I during their first semester. It is extremely unlikely any student will be able to complete their studies in four years if they do not follow this advice.
Major Requirements:
The music major offers three areas of concentrated study: Performance, Music History, and Music Theory/Composition. Each of the concentrations includes a shared group of required courses. The required courses provide music majors with foundational skills, knowledge of the discipline of music, and introduce students to the process of analytical and creative thinking.
Music majors are encouraged to declare their concentration after they have successfully completed the Engaging with Music course sequence. Once music majors have declared their concentrations, they complete ten course credits: the six required course credits, one course in Power Structures in Music, one course in Music Theory/Composition, one course in Music History, and one course that qualifies as their Culminating Undergraduate Experience (CUE).
Required Courses (six course credits)
MUS 150 - Engaging with Music I
MUS 151 - Engaging with Music II
MUS 251 - Theory & Practice in Western Tonal Music
MUS 328 - Methodologies and Epistemologies in Music
MUS 901 - Individual Applied Music - First Area 0.5 course credit (four semesters)
Power Structures in Music Electives (one course credit)
MUS 217 - “One Nation Under a Groove?”: American Music
MUS 229 - World Music
MUS 235 - History of Jazz
MUS 244 - Music & Gender
MUS 246 - Musics of Brazil
MUS 248 - Music & Race
Music History Electives (one course credit)
MUS 217 - “One Nation Under a Groove?”: American Music
MUS 219 - Opera
MUS 221 - Western Music History I
MUS 222 - Western Music History II
MUS 229 - World Music
MUS 235 - History of Jazz
MUS 238 - Empire, Madness & Decadence in Vienna
MUS 244 - Music & Gender
MUS 246 - Musics of Brazil
MUS 248 - Music & Race
MUS 331 - The English Ayre
Music Theory/Composition Electives (one course credit)
MUS 140 - Music & Technology
MUS 223 - Jazz Theory & Improvisation
MUS 313 - Form & Analysis
MUS 317 - Counterpoint
MUS 351 - Theory & Practice in Western Chromatic Music
MUS 352 - Theory & Practice in Western Post-Tonal Music
MUS 350 - Orchestration
MUS 340 - Composition Workshop I (0.5 course credit)
MUS 341 - Composition Workshop II (0.5 course credit)
MUS 440 - Composition Workshop III (0.5 course credit)
MUS 441 - Composition Workshop IV (0.5 course credit)
Culminating Undergraduate Experience (one course credit)
Music majors will complete a Culminating Undergraduate Experience (CUE). For the performance concentration, this is fulfilled with the completion of MUS 931 Applied Music - Senior Recital I and MUS 932 Applied Music - Senior Recital II. For the Music Theory/Composition Concentration, this is fulfilled either with a research paper/project completed in conjunction with a music theory course or a composition portfolio completed in conjunction with a composition course. For the Music History concentration, this is fulfilled with a research paper/project completed in conjunction with a music history course.
Minor Requirements:
Students minoring in music must compete five course units as follows:
MUS 150 - Engaging with Music I
MUS 151 - Engaging with Music II
Music History Elective
Music Theory/Composition Elective
MUS 901 - Individual Applied Music - First Area 0.5 course credit (two semesters)
MUS 101 - Introduction to Music, MUS 102 - Fundamentals of Music, and MUS 104 - Pop, Rock, and Soul cannot be enrolled to fulfill any major or minor requirements although they may be useful for some students in preparing for required courses in the major and minor or of personal interest.
