Music Building, 3 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

+1 617 496 8081

Undergraduate program

Bachelor of Arts (AB) in Music. Four years. Studies in analysis, music history, ethnomusicology, criticism, popular music, composition, aural skills. Performance, conducting and music education programs are not offered, but an agreement with the New England Conservatory enables students to complete a five-year joint degree which includes performance.

Graduate programs

Master of Arts. In historical musicology, ethnomusicology, theory, composition, creative practice. Doctor of Philosophy. In historical musicology, ethnomusicology, theory, composition, creative practice. Students are not admitted to a Master's degree as such, but in unusual cases when they are unable to successfully complete the PhD requirements they may be granted the opportunity to complete with a terminal Master of Arts (AM) degree.

A private Ivy League university established in 1636. The music department is located in the Fanny Peabody Mason Music Building which also houses a studio for electronic music, an ethnomusicology laboratory and an early instrument room with a collection of early instruments. The music program has particular strengths in electro-acoustic music, avant-garde music theatre, instrumental music. It has access to a number of fine performance spaces. Around 45 ensemble groups of varied settings are organised through the Department of Music. The Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library holds a vast collection of scores, books, periodicals and recorded music and is particularly strong in nineteenth century opera, early Western European music in modern editions, Russian and Ukrainian music of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and in avant-garde scores of the post-World-War II period. There is a growing repository of materials on jazz, blues and rock music as well as a strong collection of Slavic language materials from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Isham Memorial Library contains a significant collection of microfilms, photostats and facsimiles of music manuscripts and early printed works, as well as rare books and special collections, focusing on printed and manuscript sources of music from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It also holds the Americana from the personal library of Nadia Boulanger. There is an extensive Archive of World Music devoted to the collecting of recorded materials relative to Western folk culture and non-Western musics in general. The Andover-Harvard Theological Library has a large collection of hymns and hymnology materials. Students are encouraged to participate in Harvard University ensembles and to further their performance capabilities, but no individual performance tuition is offered on campus or required to complete any degree. A joint agreement with the New England Conservatory enables students to complete a five-year joint Bachelor of Arts (AB) degree at Harvard and Master of Music degree at the Conservatory. There is also a five-year dual degree arrangement with Berklee College of Music leading to a Bachelor of Arts (AB) at Harvard College and a Master of Music (MM) or a Master of Arts (MA) at Berklee College of Music.

November 2022