In a way that honors and celebrates our membership in a small, liberal arts, honors college community, we offer a curriculum modeled on the best features of music conservatories, large university schools of music, and large university undergraduate liberal arts programs.  We seek to provide the best possible education to highly talented students as well as to attract a well rounded, balanced and mutually supportive community of musicians-in-training.   We strive to present to students a full range of musical opportunities.  Their studies, in both academics and performance, are guided with a high level of personal attention by musicians of the first rank.

Our numerous college-level and professional-level performance activities provide a substantial educational foundation and serve as an important cultural resource for our region.  The unique summer international and orchestral programs offer students the opportunity to expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of worlds beyond their own by engaging in conservatory-like, pre-professional training here and abroad. These endeavors, taken together, are intended to prepare our students for advanced training and careers in a variety of fields such as performance, arts administration, music scholarship, and education.

We provide a wide range of musical experiences for the non-music-major liberal arts student as well.  For these students, we offer instrumental and vocal instruction (private and class), the opportunity to participate in a variety of excellent ensembles, and course work that supports an understanding of music in its wider historical, social, cultural, and geographical contexts.  Our ultimate goal for these students is to instill or to deepen in them an appreciation, affection, and respect for music specifically and the arts generally.  Participation in our musical activities helps to reinforce the vital role that the arts play in students' lives, and leads to what we hope will be a rich, life-long, life affirming association, no matter what life paths they choose to pursue.