Music

Music is a prominent part of life at St. Mary's, going well beyond the opportunities offered by the music major. Music majors and non-majors alike play in the orchestra or other ensembles or sing with the Chamber Singers or choir.

Majors study theory, history, and performance. Many majors pursue a second major or a minor in fields like international languages and cultures, history, mathematics, English, and theater, film, and media studies.

Numerous performances provide a substantial educational foundation and serve as an important cultural resource in the region. Faculty in the Music Department are distinguished musicians and give concerts both on campus and around the world, in such venues as New York, Washington, London, Rome, Shanghai, while giving high level, personal attention to their students.

St. Mary's Project (SMP)

SMPs in the Music Department may be a written study or a public performance supported by an academic paper related to that performance. Recent SMPs in music:

• Music in the Civil War
• Baroque music and rhetoric: Toward an aesthetic
• Inside out: A punk ethnography
• Influence of literature on the music of Hector Berlioz

Travel Abroad

Early each summer, members of the St. Mary's Chamber Singers and Chamber Orchestra spend two weeks at the Italy&USA Alba Music Festival in the medieval town of Alba in the Piedmont of northern Italy. Led by faculty, they study and rehearse in the mornings, rehearse and sightsee in the afternoons, and produce concert after concert in the evenings with world-class musicians.

Life After St. Mary's

Graduates leave St. Mary's to enter careers in performance, composition, music therapy, music scholarship, education, music law, and arts administration. A few of the graduate schools to which music students have been accepted:

• Manhattan School of Music
• Northwestern University,
• Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
• San Francisco Conservatory of Music
• University of Maryland at College Park
• University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Westminster Choir College
• Yale School of Music

Special Opportunities

For almost a decade, the Chesapeake Orchestra at St. Mary's has produced the River Concert Series: free outdoor concerts in the early summer. These are held outdoors at sunset, overlooking the river, and attract crowds of 3,000 or more. St. Mary's students are hired to play in this professional orchestra, as sound technicians, and as event coordinators. These experiences acquaint them with the process of musical production and also give them valuable performance opportunities with world-class musicians.

For more information, visit the Music Department Web site at
http://www.smcm.edu/music