The Department of Music is a community of scholars, creators, and performers dedicated to exploring music’s past, present, and future.
Department of Music
The Department of Music is a community of scholars, creators, and performers dedicated to exploring music’s past, present, and future.
Through multiple modes of inquiry and experience, the department advances new ways of understanding music as both creative expression and cultural practice throughout the world. The department promotes musical education, research, and engagement at the highest standards of excellence on an open and inclusive basis.
Academics
Undergraduate
Our diverse curriculum combines creative courses in composition, technology, and performance with speculative studies in history, theory, ethnomusicology, philosophy, and musical aesthetics.
Graduate
At Brown, your degree is what you make it: the more adventurous you are, the more exciting your program is likely to be.
Music Making
The Department of Music at Brown offers a huge array of performing opportunities, all available for academic credit.
Students seeking to improve their playing or singing ability have the option of taking individual private lessons with about thirty professional musicians from the greater Boston-Providence area.
Composer and Brown University Music & Multimedia Composition PhD candidate Inga Chinilina was awarded a 2024 Fromm Music Foundation Commission.
The Fromm Music Foundation was created by the late Paul Fromm in 1952. Since 1972, it has been located at Harvard University, where it has operated in partnership with the Harvard University Music Department. Over the course of its existence, the Fromm Foundation has commissioned over 400 new compositions and their performances. Congratulations, Inga!
Over the past three years, Brown’s Sayles Organ has undergone major restoration in an effort to maintain the musicality and integrity of the century-old instrument. The 1903 Hutchings-Votey pipe organ was gifted to Brown University by Lucian Sharpe, a member of the Class of 1893. Today, the 121-year-old instrument stars in 10 annual concert series, including the Halloween recital, Reunion Weekend and the E.J. Lownes Memorial Recital, according to Mark Steinbach, a distinguished senior lecturer in music and the University’s organist.
Internationally acclaimed Grammy and Academy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste comes to Brown this January. Fresh off a North American tour for his latest studio album, World Music Radio, which was nominated for six Grammys, including Album of the Year, Batiste will bring his prolific and brilliant musicianship to The Lindemann’s Main Hall for an exclusive Brown-campus-only concert.
Brown University students, faculty, and staff are welcome to enter to receive two (2) tickets (one pair) to the Jon Batiste performance on Saturday, January 25, 2024, at 7:00 PM. Submissions must include a Brown University email address.
You’re a student composer looking to assemble a group of musicians to record a score you’ve written for a friend’s short film. You’ve heard that there are some really talented musicians on campus, you have no idea how to reach them. And even if you did, where would you record? Help!
OR
You’re a faculty member at Brown who plays in a Cape Verdean function band around Providence. The band needs a new percussionist and maybe a couple of backing vocalists. You know that there is a big Cape Verdean community on staff at Brown and you’d love to find out if there are any musicians among them. But you have no idea who to ask. Help!
OR
You’re a staff member at Brown who used to play a lot of old-time music before you moved to Providence, and you’re looking to get back into it. Someone told you about a banjo player who works at the Watson, a sophomore who plays the mandolin, a graduate student who plays upright bass, and a fiddle player who teaches physics. But you’ve never put together a group from scratch before and wouldn’t know where to start. Help!
Join us at MIXDOWN to meet fellow Brown University students, staff, and faculty who are passionate about writing, making, producing, performing, and listening to music. Gatherings will take place twice per semester and include time to make announcements, share RI-based resources, and build connections. Open to all Brown University faculty, staff, and students. Refreshments provided.
Location and RSVP form to be added closer to the date.
Developed by Elias Muhanna, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and History, with support from Brown Arts Institute.