加州州立大学长滩分校

The Master of Music degree program provides professional concentrations in Composition, Conducting-Instrumental, Conducting-Choral, Jazz Studies, Opera Performance and Instrumental/Vocal Performance.

The BCCM offers two master’s degree tracks in composition. Students in both tracks benefit from opportunities to work closely with the individual composition faculty, and from frequent opportunities for feedback from the composition faculty and from their fellow students—both advanced undergraduates and fellow graduate students. There are also many opportunities to participate in adventurous and unusual new music performances: in recent years, the department has hosted several Happenings, a full performance, day and night, of Erik Satie’s Vexations (with an expanded instrumentation including analog synthesizers, antiphonal sax choir, toy piano and tuba, multiple melodicas, electric guitar and bass, and more), performances of several different 60x60 mixes, thereby experiencing new one-minute works by literally hundreds of different living composers on campus, and many more. Through the Laptop Ensemble and the New Music Ensemble, the department has also seen several collaborations with video artists, and dozens of world premieres by composers in the department and others from afar, including the New Music Ensemble’s premiering Christian Wolff’s Robert and Pauline Oliveros’s Sound Listening, both works that the ensemble commissioned and prepared under each composer’s supervision.

Students go on from our master’s degree programs in composition to work in the film industry and in higher education, to found their own ensembles and concert series, and many other composition-related pursuits. Many of our students have also gone on to doctoral study in composition at excellent programs on the West Coast, throughout the U.S., and abroad.

Master of Music Degree in Composition

Students in this program write works for the full range of traditional acoustic instruments, from solo works to ones for large orchestra, as well as for various electronic resources, working constantly to refine their own compositional voice under the guidance of the composition faculty. The program offers many courses for advanced study, with recent offerings including seminars focused on computer notation, Max/MSP/Jitter, art song composition, Schenkerian theory, and composition informed by music outside of the classical tradition (including influences from rock, jazz, and non-Western traditions). Students in the program have written works for readings and workshops by the BCCM Symphony Orchestra, the BCCM Wind Symphony, Kronos Quartet, the Friction String Quartet, and many other resident and guest ensembles.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Master of Music in Composition Candidates have in-depth understanding of:

• contemporary musical styles and techniques. • aesthetics of contemporary music. • notational practices in music. • use of technology as a compositional tool. • approaches to teaching theory/composition. • research and writing in the discipline.