About Us

Mission Statement | Fall 2006 Music Student Demographics | Academic Areas

Degrees Offered | Careers in Music/Student Placement | Ensembles

Community Music School | Facilities | On-Campus Performance | Venues Outreach

http://www.celebrate music.msu.edu

The College of Music at Michigan State University is known throughout the United States and in many parts of the world as a leading professional training ground for composers, conductors, performers, and music educators, historians, theorists, and therapists.

An outstanding faculty of more than 70 resident artists and scholars, and more than 65 graduate assistants completing advanced studies, provide instruction and guidance. The faculty is noted for devotion to teaching, excellence in performance, creating innovative and imaginative curricula, the production of creative works, and significant research in many areas of music.

The College of Music enjoys students from all corners of the United States and has significant international representation with students from more than 17 nations. The College of Music has one of the leading music education programs in the nation, and an outstanding ethnomusicology and jazz studies program. The College boasts exceptionally high placement rates in music education and music therapy, and is one of the leading universities in placing graduate students in tenure stream positions.

Mission Statement 

The mission of the Michigan State University College of Music is to provide the highest quality professional instruction; to instill in students a dedication and desire to achieve excellence and understanding in all aspects of their musical education; to develop their abilities to the highest professional standards; to expand cultural awareness and diversity; to provide access for comprehensive non-degree instruction; to participate in community, state, regional, national and international arenas through service, teaching, research and performance; and to support an excellent faculty vitally engaged in significant research, scholarly and creative endeavors.

Fall 2006 Music Student Demographics

Average Enrollment: 600–650
Fall 2006 Enrollment: 636
Number of Undergraduates: 380
Number of Graduates: 256
Percentage of In-State Students: 58.2%
Percentage of Out-of-State: 24.8%
Percentage of International Students: 17%
Percentage of In-State Undergraduate Students: 77.6%
Percentage of Out-of-State Undergraduates: 18%
Percentage of International Undergraduate Students: 4.4%
Percentage of In-State Graduate Students: 31.4%
Percentage of Out-of-State Graduates: 34%
Percentage of International Graduate Students: 34.6%

Academic Areas

The College of Music provides high quality, professional and liberal arts education for students pursuing music as a career in the areas of performance, music education, composition, music theory, musicology, and music therapy.

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Degrees Offered

Undergraduate degrees: composition, jazz studies, music, music education, music performance (brass, percussion, piano, strings, voice, woodwind), music theory, and music therapy.

Graduate degrees: composition, conducting (band, choral, orchestral), music education, music performance (brass, percussion, piano, strings, voice, woodwind), music theory, music therapy, musicology, and piano pedagogy.

Doctoral degrees: composition, conducting (band, choral, orchestral), music education, and music performance (brass, percussion, piano, strings, voice, woodwind).

Careers in Music/Student Placement

Currently, there is a high demand for music teachers in the United States with more jobs needing to be filled than there are prospective teachers to fill them. The College of Music boasts a 100 percent career placement rate over the past eight years for its Music Education and Music Therapy graduates.

Ensembles

College of Music ensembles are open to all MSU students. Undergraduate and graduate students from all academic disciplines are invited and encouraged to audition and participate.

Eight choirs: University Chorale, State Singers, Women's Chamber Ensemble, Women’s Glee Club, Men's Glee Club, Collegiate Choir, Chamber Choir, and Choral Union.

Four orchestras: Symphony, Philharmonic, Chamber and Concert.

Seven bands: Wind, Symphony, Concert, two Campus Bands, Marching Band, and Brass Band.

Seven jazz ensembles: Jazz Orchestra I & II, Octet I, II & III, Jazz Combos, and Vocal Jazz     Ensemble.

Musique 21 (contemporary music ensemble)

MSU Opera Theatre: presenting an opera or musical each semester.

Ensemble auditions

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Community Music School

Established in 1993, the Community Music School (CMS) is a major outreach arm of the College of Music. It serves more than 2,600 individuals–1,600 on a weekly basis. Classes, lessons, programs, camps and music therapy services serve those of all ages and abilities in the community. The CMS is located off campus at 841 Timberlane Road in East Lansing. It shares space with the East Lansing Public School System offices and Board of Education in the former Trinity Church building.

Facilities

Consists of two neighboring buildings that include numerous classrooms, a complex of four computer music studios, a 20-seat computer-assisted-instruction classroom, a music education resource room, a music therapy clinic, a psychology of music laboratory, recording facilities, rehearsal spaces, private teaching studios, and 81 practice rooms.

On-Campus Performance Venues

Wharton Center for Performing Arts (seats 2,500)

Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre (seats 600)

Wharton Center’s Fairchild Theatre (seats 670)

Wharton Center’s University Auditorium (seats 670)
College of Music venues located in Music Building:

(see map on right *)

• Music Building Auditorium (seats 360)
• Hart Recital Hall (seats 85)

Outreach

Detroit Public School Music Partnership

The College of Music and the Detroit Public School System established the Detroit Public School Music Partnership (DPSMP), which has many dimensions. Through this partnership, College of Music faculty, students, and performing ensembles partake in coaching, mentoring, shared performances, exchanges, adjudications, interactive lectures, and co-curricular development in Detroit Public Schools.

In recent years, the Spartan Marching Band presented clinics and adjudications with Detroit Public School students, in addition to a community performance concluding with a concert of mass bands. In addition, wind and choral-conducting professors provided clinics and guest-conducting appearances in Detroit Public Schools. Students from the Music Education Area visit and tour urban public school settings (elementary, middle schools, and high schools) each semester. The College of Music even sponsored a campus visit by grade school students from Detroit. The children experienced a specially prepared concert for them in the Music Auditorium, and visited campus landmarks such as the planetarium, Breslin Center, Spartan Stadium, and ate lunch in a dormitory cafeteria. Vocal arts professors provide clinics and master classes, and jazz faculty present clinics and concerts in Detroit public schools as well. Ethnomusicologist faculty member Isaac Kalumbu presented the following lectures: “Black Music of Two Worlds” and “Rap in Africa and America,” together with interactive sessions with students on these topics.

Future plans include presentations of short children’s operas, more visits to campus, and performances by select Detroit High School jazz bands at MSU’s annual Jazz Spectacular event. The MSU Children’s Choir is also planning visits and joint concerts between various Detroit high schools (Renaissance High School, Martin Luther King). 

The Arts League of Michigan                                         

The Jazz Studies Program partnered with The Arts League

of Michigan in 2003. The Arts League is dedicated to

developing, presenting, promoting, and preserving African

and African-American cultural arts within its multicultural

community. With The Arts League, MSU jazz faculty

members run two-week summer jazz camps for inner

city students in Detroit in grades 9 through 12. In addition,

MSU jazz students, under the direction of a jazz faculty

member, participate in a 10-week Artist Mentorship Program

on Saturdays each semester. Through this program, they teach, mentor and serve as role models to middle and high school student musicians in Detroit. In the near future, Director of Jazz Studies Rodney Whitaker plans to implement a similar mentorship program under the direction of the jazz faculty in the Lansing area in conjunction with the MSU Community Music School (CMS). The Arts League also started a regular jazz concert series in Detroit, alternating MSU jazz faculty and student ensemble performances.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra Partnership

MSU Professors of Jazz, an ensemble consisting of the entire MSU Jazz Studies faculty, are featured artists in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s (DSO) new Jazz Club Series. Concerts are held at the new Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit and feature the MSU Professors of Jazz and international guest artists.

Whitaker also received a three-year contract to conduct the Detroit Symphony Civic Jazz Orchestra––Michigan’s premiere pre-professional training orchestra. This orchestra was established to help young musicians improve their improvisation and reading skills. Many of the members of this orchestra move on to join prestigious ensembles throughout the nation. In addition, advanced MSU jazz students provide sectionals and mentor the young musicians in this orchestra, which gives the MSU students valuable and practical teaching experience.

Another outreach project, through both the DSO and Arts League, is “Combos in Residence,” in which MSU jazz combos perform at high schools in Detroit.

MSU Sesquicentennial Tours

Since Fall 2001, College of Music ensembles have performed throughout Michigan as part of MSU’s Sesquicentennial Tour, celebrating 150 years of service to the community and Michigan. The college has brought music to all corners of Michigan through the official anniversary in 2005.

Michigan residents have reaped the cultural benefits of nationally recognized musicians and performances right in their own communities. These tours have also provided students with an educational and experience component that they cannot get in the classroom. It has given them the opportunity to put their best professional foot forward and get a taste of what life might be like as a performing artist. The tour played an integral part in overall Sesquicentennial celebrations, which will chronicle MSU’s history and serve as a projection of the future, creating new perceptions of the university. It is also hoped that the tour has strengthened ties to alumni and friends of the university.

Jazz Kats—Jazz for Kids

The Jazz Studies Program has partnered with the Wharton Center for Performing Arts on the MSU campus to present new jazz programming with a focus on appreciation and understanding of jazz through performance, presentation, education and preservation. Jazz Kats–Jazz for Kids, which started in Fall 2004, is an educational outreach series is geared toward middle school students. It is modeled after Jazz at Lincoln Center’s highly successful Jazz for Young People concerts. The series was developed by artistic director Rodney Whitaker and co-produced by Wharton Center Executive Director Michael Brand, with assistance from Wharton’s Education Director Debbie Gift. Teachers will receive scripts, study guides and CDs to review with students before performances. Concerts are presented to school audiences in a weekday series, with a weekend public matinee series designed specifically for families with elementary and middle school aged children. The concerts feature MSU jazz faculty and are narrated by storyteller Charles Thornton. Plans are also underway to tour Jazz Kats throughout Michigan. Public performances during the 2005-06 academic year include: Swingin', Stompin', and Rockin', Let Freedom Ring and Young Satchmo, Blow Your Horn!

Artists in the Schools Program

MSU Composition Professor Mark Sullivan received his fourth in a series of grants that support artists who show teachers how to integrate the arts into their teaching curriculum. Through the No Child Left Behind Act, Title II, he received an award of $179,000 for a two-year project that involves Hispanic and African American artists working in four schools in the East Lansing and Lansing School Districts. The project uses classroom-based residencies by artists from five artistic disciplines (theater, painting, writing, music, and video) to provide teacher development sessions for 24 teachers in four different schools, three of which have high proportions of at-risk students. The session's model ways of integrating the arts into the curriculum, focusing on practices the teachers can carry on after the residencies.

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