Read about how you can make music at Dickinson during our virtual Fall 2020 semester on our Music During COVID-19 page. Alumni are invited to join us.
Walk into the music department on a typical day, and you will find students and faculty working together to answer crucial cultural questions.
What makes a great piece of music compelling?
How can art address social problems?
How might performance create empathy between individuals?
What ethical dilemmas do scholars and performers face in their creative work?
How does one evaluate an expressive medium such as composition?
How has music been harnessed for humanistic and political gains?
These are the types of interdisciplinary conversations we are having in our classrooms, performance studios, practice rooms and rehearsals and on our concert stage. If you love composing, performing or thinking about music, we invite you to join our supportive and expressive community.
“ The Weiss Prize gave me the opportunity to create a significant work and realize it in a public performance. The discipline and rigor required in writing the work and the collaborative atmosphere of the rehearsal process were both challenging in all the best ways.”
—Sam Phelps '19, who will spend a year as a contractor’s apprentice building a tiny house before pursuing a graduate degree in composition at Peabody Conservatory
“ The Department of Music has given me an amazing experience and has the best faculty of any department. We’re a family. Presenting the research I conducted in my senior music seminar was one of the proudest moments for me at Dickinson.”
—Jessie Doyle '19, studying music education at Boston University