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Music
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Bachelor of Music
The Bachelor of Music provides conservatory-level training in a liberal
arts environment. Our program is designed as a pre-professional degree,
with studies in classical or jazz performance, composition, and music
education that can lead to graduate programs or directly to professional
careers. Significant scholarships are available for talented students.
This is the program for aspiring performers, composers, music educators,
or music historians. In addition to hour-long lessons every week* [footnote:
*lessons are free for instate students, and are charged at the same rate
as classes for out of state and international students], you can participate
in ensembles of all sorts, new-music events, and collaborations with our
dance program. Music theory and musicianship classes aim to make theoretical
concepts relevant to your area of study and provide opportunities to perform
or compose in class. SFSU choruses, orchestra, band, big band, jazz combos,
and world music groups enable you to polish your ensemble skills under
leaders in your field.
Right on campus, you will have opportunities to hear more than 100 music
events per year, and here in San Francisco, you can hear your teachers
perform professionally in operas, symphony performances, chamber music,
and jazz groups.
Additional information is available in the SFSU
Bulletin.
Areas of Study:
Classical Performance
Jazz Performance
Composition
Music Education
(see also Bachelor
of Arts)
Classical Performance
Orchestral instruments, voice, piano, and guitar
Artists in residence: The Alexander String Quartet
The pre-professional degree is performing artists in the making, and we
prepare you for that life in many ways. In addition to private lessons,
you will participate in large ensembles and chamber music groups, some
of which tour nationally and internationally.
Central to the classical performance major at SFSU are our faculty of
actively performing artist-teachers. You will be able to attend their
performances with the San Francisco Symphony, Opera, and Ballet orchestras,
and in chamber music recitals, new music events, and opera productions.
And because of the size of our program, you will receive all the attention
you need from your teachers.
Our students have been prizewinners in international competitions or hired
into orchestras and opera companies. Many have gone on to graduate programs
at conservatories in the United States and abroad, and some have gone
into the Master Degree Program at SFSU.
For those [of you] interested in Jazz as well, we provide and encourage
participation in Jazz and World Music ensembles.
Jazz Performance
Artist
in residence: Branford Marsalis
At the center of our jazz performance degree is the idea that studying
jazz can be—and must be—no less challenging and rigorous than
studying classical music. Private lessons* [footnote: *lessons are free
for instate students, and are charged at the same rate as classes for
out of state and international students], together with performances
in the big band and a wide variety of combos (swing, straight-ahead, blues,
bop, Afro-Cuban, modal, world, fusion, vocal, etc.), put performance in
the forefront of this degree. Three levels of improvisation classes, along
with studies in theory, musicianship, and arranging, provide a solid foundation
for a deep understanding of performance, and seminars in jazz history
and world music put your work into context. Options to play in classical
ensemble create still more opportunities for a diverse education.
San Francisco’s thriving jazz scene feeds SFSU’s jazz program.
Our performing faculty is made up of professional artists who perform
or have performed with legends of the jazz and popular music world
and can be heard regularly at venues from San Francisco to New York, and
all
have recordings commercially available. Admission to the major is competitive
and standards are high. As a result, you will receive all the attention
you need from your teachers.
Composition
Write it, hear it. We believe you learn best by immediately hearing what
you write. Composition students collaborate with our instrumentalists
to write pieces for specific, existing ensembles. Rehearsals are professionally
coached by the Alexander Quartet and other experts, and performances are
digitally recorded. Advanced students may write for professional ensembles
in residence and visiting new-music ensembles and soloists.
Music Education
We create great
educators who are also great musicians. Working within one of three concentrations —instrumental, vocal, or keyboard/choral
—we focus on performance and pedagogy to prepare you to teach in
elementary and secondary schools. Our highly-trained graduates are in
demand around the Bay Area and throughout the state. And extraordinary
demand for music teachers in California and around the country suggests
that the extremely positive job outlook will continue for many years.
In fact, most of our students have teaching jobs waiting for them upon
receiving their teaching credential.
Music education majors with a high level of performance skills have the
opportunity to audition for a music education/music performance double
major. This allows them to take full advantage of all the benefits of
the performance degree while still completing the academic requirements
for the Single Subject Teaching Credential in Music. |
