Music

Overview

The Music program at Saint Mary's College of California has a curriculum that focuses on development of the whole musician, guiding each student to strive for excellence and realize their full potential. With small class sizes (student-to-teacher of 5:1) throughout program, major and non-majors alike see exponential growth and development, and enjoy an enviable number of performance opportunities. Auditions for ensembles occur at the beginning and end of each term – all ensemble members qualify for private lessons. See below for specific ensemble details.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successfully completing a degree in Music, Dance, or Theatre, students will be able to:

• Employ appropriately the basic technical terms generally used in an art form when discussing individual works, and identify specific elements of the aesthetic, historical and cultural context of a work of art by comparing it to others from the same context.

• Utilize a cross-disciplinary perspective in the arts and a familiarity with the Great Books / liberal arts tradition to identify the ways performing artists draw inspiration from nature, history, imagination, and the creative ideas and influences of others.

• Recognize similarities in structure (such as elements of phrasing) shared by all three performing arts and be able to articulate the significance of structural elements in the analysis of a work’s form and meaning.

• Engage in critical discourse that transcends personal opinion and acknowledges, respects and integrates the insights of other students from diverse cultural backgrounds.

• Demonstrate the capacity for sustained and focused rehearsal efforts and for working collaboratively with different directors and performers.

• Perform the works of great choreographers, composers, and playwrights, as well as original /contemporary works of living artists.

• Adapt performance skills both in rehearsal and performance to the technical demands of specific masterworks of various styles and eras, as well as to original/contemporary works.

• Exhibit performance skills beyond the foundational to professional level while effectively negotiating the anxiety/excitement of live performance, and be conversant with advanced techniques of the discipline.