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Graduate

What makes our graduate program special?

We are a relatively small program within a large university. We regard each student as an individual and maintain a supportive environment in which students can explore the multifaceted world of music while making use of the offerings of the many departments, centers, and programs of the university at large. We aim for the highest quality of scholarship and creativity while providing a nurturing environment for our students.

What are the degree programs like?

In a program devoted to music in all its aspects and contexts, the Music Department awards the graduate degrees of MA and PhD in music. The program comprises the three subdisciplines of music scholarship— ethnomusicology, historical musicology, and composition and theory. Students specialize in one of these areas, but take courses in and engage in dialogue with the other two in an academically integrated, flexible, and dynamic program. Students are also encouraged to take advantage of course offerings outside the Music Department. A distinguished faculty of international reputation teaches and advises students in all three subdisciplines, regardless of specialty.

Graduate Faculty

Ethnomusicology

Nathan Davis, Akin Euba, Andrew Weintraub and Bell Yung represent a range of subject areas and scholarly and creative approaches.

Nathan Davis teaches jazz and African American music, and founded the jazz program at the University, as well as the annual Jazz Seminar and Concert, directs the Jazz Ensemble, and performs internationally. He has recently extended his outreach activities to Africa, South America, and the Middle East.

Akin Euba, the Mellon Professor of Music, has published work on Yoruba drumming and currently works on intercultural music and composition. He directs the concert and lecture program, A Bridge Across, both here and at Churchill College, Cambridge University.

Andrew Weintraub specializes in music of Southeast Asia, especially Sundanese puppet theater, as well as popular music theory. He directs the University's gamelan ensemble.

Bell Yung, in addition to serving as Director of the Asian Studies Center, is recognized as the world's leading scholar in Chinese music. He has published books and articles on numerous subjects, including an edited volume on Charles Seeger.

Historical Musicology

The historical musicology faculty also works in a diversity of subjects and approaches. Don Franklin, Mary S. Lewis, Anna Nisnevich, and Deane Root specialize in Bach and the baroque, 16th-century Italian music, 19th and 20th-century French and Russian music, and American music respectively.

Don Franklin has served as president of the American Bach Society and on the Direktorium of the Neue Bachgesellschaft (Leipzig). He also directs the Pitt concert series Bach and the Baroque.

Mary S. Lewis has published widely on the music of the sixteenth century and on the history of music printing and publishing, and her book, Antonio Gardano, Venetian Music Printer 1538-69, is a standard reference work in the field. She also works on problems in the history and transmission of early plainchant.

Deane Root, department chair, is director of the Center for American Music and is past president of the Society for American Music. As an authority on Stephen Foster and nineteenth-century American popular music, as well as on teaching with music in secondary schools, he frequently serves as a consultant for media companies and appears on broadcasts for the Public Broadcasting System, BBC and ARTE.

James Cassaro heads the music library, teaches the proseminar on Principles of Research and Bibliography, and serves on thesis committees. His research centers on French baroque music, American music, and nineteenth-century Italian opera.

Composition and Theory

Eric Moe, Mathew Rosenblum, and Amy Williams are widely performed and
honored composers.

Eric Moe recently received the Rhonda and Walter Lakond Award of the American Academy of Arts and letters; both he and Mathew Rosenblum are current recipients of Fromm Foundation commissions. Together they direct the series Music on the Edge. Eric Moe has also received commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Koussevitzky Foundation.

Mathew Rosenblum's works, which draw on diverse elements from classical, jazz, rock, and world music traditions, have been performed in Oslo, Amsterdam, and Düsseldorf as well as in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York by such ensembles as the New York New Music Ensemble, the Rascher Quartet, and the Chicago Contemporary Players.

Amy Williams has been featured all over Europe and the United States as a composer, and as performer with the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo. Her prizes include the Wayne Peterson Composition Prize, the Thayer Award for the Arts, and the ASCAP Award for Young Composers, as well as grants from leading foundations such as the American Music Center and Meet the Composer.

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Colloquia

The department sponsors a Colloquium Series each semester, bringing in outstanding speakers in a wide variety of fields to supplement and enrich the curriculum.

Graduate Handbook

Students may find detailed information on course requirements, department regulations, degree requirements, and related material in the Graduate Handbook (PDF).

Announcement

Course descriptions for the School of Arts and Sciences are now available online.

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