Princeton University

The Music Department provides all Princeton University students with the opportunity to learn from world-renowned composers, historians and theorists, to take instrumental or voice lessons in the private studios of eminent professional performers and performance courses in chamber music, opera, vocal ensembles, and to audition to perform with our six jazz groups, three choruses, two orchestras, a wind ensemble, a lap top orchestra. Students may also participate in a host of student-run ensembles including numerous a cappella groups, chamber music collective, an early music ensemble, opera company, composers collective, and a piano collective.

The undergraduate Music Major at Princeton is designed to give students a solid foundation in the criticism, analysis, and composition of music, allowing them to explore the art from a variety of perspectives. Whether our students choose to write music (focus on composition) or write about music (focus on theory and music history), they are encouraged to give full reign to their creative instincts and have the freedom to develop senior thesis projects that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Princeton is full of musicians: instrumentalists, singers, composers, non-western; and music: non-western, western, classical, pop and folk and everything in between. Performance is a vibrant part of both academic and extracurricular life on campus, and a stellar performance faculty offers private studio lessons to all students. The Program in Performance offers Certificates in Music Performance, Jazz Studies, and Music Theater (a collaboration between the Lewis Center for the Arts and the Department of Music). The Department also hosts a variety of performance ensembles, and facilitates an Exchange Program at the Royal College of Music (London).