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.

Contact Info

Chair

Jennifer BlythProfessor of Music

Department Coordinator

Stacy RohrerDepartment Coordinator
Barbara NeibergDepartment Coordinator

Phone

717-245-1568

Fax

717-245-1937

Location

Weiss 207, Weiss Center for the Arts Mailing Address

Department Features


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Study Abroad
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Current Courses

Student Outcomes

Where Our Students Go From Here

Jobs

  • Peace Corps
  • Nashville Opera
  • Arts Council of Princeton
  • Baltimore Children’s Museum, Education Department
  • Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
  • Healing Strings Studio, Founder
  • JCC Manhattan
  • Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
  • Heimat Quartet
  • International Contemporary Ensemble
  • Maryland Folklife Archive
  • New England Conservatory
  • Opera Lafayette
  • Princeton University
  • San Francisco Conservatory of Music
  • San Francisco Opera
  • University of Texas, Arlington
  • Cornell University
  • IBM
  • Lutzker & Lutzker LLP
  • Twentieth Television
  • Vanguard Group, Inc.
  • UCLA Children’s Hospital
  • United States Military and Reserve

Graduate Schools

  • Boston Conservatory
  • Boston University
  • Fulbright Fellowship
  • George Washington University Law School
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • New York Medical College
  • New York University
  • Northwestern University
  • Peabody Conservatory
  • Princeton University
  • Shenandoah University Conservatory
  • Tulane University
  • UCLA
  • University of Bologna (IT)
  • University of Oregon
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison
Where Our Students Have Interned
  • Warner Brothers
  • Chelsea Music Festival
  • St. Marks Opera, Florence, Italy
  • AIMS Festival (Graz, Austria)
  • Bethlehem Press
  • Brevard Music Festival
  • Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra
  • Lincoln Center
  • LitWorld
  • National Theater Institute
  • Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute
  • Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center

Student Perspective

“ 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


Alumni in Action


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Setting the Mood

Former music and economics major Jong Ho Choi ’18 composes music to set the mood as a composer for film.


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Department News

Department News


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Student Snapshot: Brianna Geesaman ’21

Meet Brianna Geesaman ’21, who’s merging business with Italian studies and making the most of her year abroad in Italy by singing in the university choir, tutoring in English and volunteering.


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Student Snapshot: Hannah Youmans ’22

Hannah Youmans ’22, winner of the Metropolitan Opera NCA Encouragement Award, discusses why she chose to major in music and Italian at Dickinson as well as her favorite experiences in and out of class


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Student Snapshot: Abby Duell ’20

Music major Abby Duell '20 says Dickinson has been the perfect place to "pursue music at a high level while also exploring my love of the outdoors and the environment.”


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Student Snapshot: Erik Gomez ’22  

During an internship at Warner Bros., Erik Gomez ’22 provided Spanish translations for the TV show Friends. His ultimate goal: to secure greater Latinx representation in the entertainment industry.


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'A Dream Come True'

Cailin Smith ’18 always enjoyed singing, but she wasn’t sure she had what it took to break into opera until a professor who believed in her gave her the courage to pursue her dreams.


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Having it All

Whether he's performing onstage, conducting cancer research or throwing the javelin, John Dickinson Scholar Peter Howard '15 gives his all.


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