Department of Music Overview 
101 Lincoln Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
U.S.A.
 
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LL48@cornell.edu
 		   The Department of Music at Cornell provides opportunities for the study and performance of music under the guidance of a distinguished faculty, as part of an education at a great university. Students study music for many reasons. Some students may devote considerable time and energy to it, either through enrolling in the major or by taking a series of elective courses. Others find the study of music a natural way to pursue an interest without necessarily committing a large amount of time. Either way, our program is designed to develop or increase an understanding of music that may already be familiar and to explore other music that is less known. Any qualified student, regardless of his or her major, may enroll in courses in music history, theory, composition, and performance. Introductory courses, which have no prerequisites, are offered regularly. Faculty performers offer instruction, with credit or without, to qualified students in voice, keyboard, strings, and brasses. Instruction in winds and other instruments can be arranged with teachers outside the faculty, and in some cases these lessons may also receive Cornell credit. The department also assists students seeking outside teachers for beginning instruction in any instrument. 

Cornell has flourished as a center for research in music since 1930, when it appointed Otto Kinkeldey to the first chair of musicology in an American university. In addition to the traditional historical and theoretical subjects, current faculty research includes such fields as performance practice in eighteenth-century instrumental music, popular music in Southeast Asia, and the operas of Verdi. The field of music composition, another Cornell strength, provides extensive instruction for doctoral students and undergraduates, including five state-of-the-art digital music studios. Here composers can accomplish everything from basic editing and burning of audio CDs to realizing live interactive pieces, music for film or dance, or any other creative interest. Cornell's excellent Music Library has outstanding research and reference resources-including more than 175,000 recordings, scores, books, and periodicals-and good listening and video facilities. 

The Department of Music emphasizes intimate and flexible programs. Our special distinction is a dedication to excellence in the study of music that reflects a concern for the constant interaction of scholarship, performance, and composition by faculty members and students alike. As of 2007-2008, we have nineteen full-time and five part-time faculty members and two active emeritus professors, including internationally known performers, composers, and scholars and a dozen teaching assistants. Each year, twenty-five to thirty graduate students are in residence, along with twenty or so undergraduates majoring in music. Most classes are small, and student advising is personal and extensive.