About Us

Our new Ph.D. in Music has been approved and we are accepting applications. The Department of Music at UC Riverside offers undergraduate majors leading to the B.A. in Music and the B.A. in Music and Culture, as well as an M.A./Ph.D. in Music with a specialization in three areas: musicology, ethnomusicology, and composition.

The Department features a distinctive and supportive environment for study in music. It emphasizes close interaction between its students and faculty, and provides for a continuously expanding range of musical and intellectual pursuits. Faculty interests range from traditional Western art music (offering foundational study in traditional musicology, theory, and composition) and ethnomusicology (music ethnography) to cultural studies, gender/sexuality, critical theory, free improvisation, digital and electronic music composition, popular music and the culture industry (including television and film as well as computer gaming), area studies, and many others. The entire faculty shares a belief in the importance of musical performance, an activity in which many are regularly engaged, and students receive individual attention in both research and creative projects.

Setting
The 1,200-acre Riverside campus of the University of California is situated at the foot of the dramatic San Bernardino Mountains in the heart of the rapidly growing Inland Empire. Conveniently located 50 miles east of Los Angeles, it is equidistant from the desert, mountains, and ocean and is within easy driving distance to most of the major cultural and recreational offerings of Southern California. Nearby Ontario International Airport offers access to the nation’s major cities and commuter flights to LAX; Metrolink train service is available to LA.

Resources
The new ARTS building has a 140-seat performance lab, 106-seat rehearsal space, ear-training laboratory, 19 practice rooms, various teaching studios, faculty and administrative offices, and the Music Library. Facilities include an electronic/computer music studio, practice rooms equipped with Steinway and Yamaha pianos, teaching studios, a carillon console, and computerized ear-training equipment. The instrument collection, in addition to complete families of the modern orchestral and band instruments, is particularly rich in historical replicas to support the Collegium Musicum: three pipe organs, two harpsichords, virginal, clavichord, forte-piano, lutes, theorbo, viols, and a large group of Renaissance and Baroque wind instruments. The department also owns large and expanding collections of instruments for five world-music ensembles: Javanese gamelan, Japanese taiko, Mexican and Andean folkloric, and Filipino rondalla. UC Riverside is home to the Center for Iberian and Latin American Music and its journal Diagonal (www.cilam.ucr.edu). The Center sponsors annual Encuentros/Encounters featuring a conference and concerts devoted to a particular aspect of this heritage..

Library
The UCR library has strong music research collections located in three facilities. Approximately 30,000 books about music may be found in the Rivera Library, along with 118 active print serials titles, bound periodicals, and microforms. The Music Library, located in room 054 Arts Building (lower level), provides listening and playback equipment and houses collections of some 10,000 LPs, more than 4,000 CDs, and 27,500 music scores. A growing collection of audio CD-ROMs and DVDs is also available. The library’s collections of other visual materials such as film, videotapes, DVDs, and laser discs, along with playback equipment, are housed in the Media Library, located in the Humanities and Social Sciences building. Online access to these collections and a variety of electronic resources is provided through MELVYL (the UC online catalog) and the library’s electronic catalog, Scotty.

In addition, the UCR library currently subscribes to a number of key indexes and abstracts, full-text, and bibliographic electronic resources. These include: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians; New Grove Dictionary of Opera; The Arts and Humanities Citation Index; International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP); International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA); Music Index; Repertoire Internationale de la Litterature Musicale (RILM); Repertoire Internationale de la Presse Musicale (RIPM).

Finally, the Special Collections Department maintains excellent collections of archives and other primary resources of great value: the Joaquín Nin-Culmell Collection (the composer’s entire archive of manuscripts, correspondence, and other documents); the Heinrich Schenker Collection (papers from music theoretician Schenker’s personal collection, including scores, published writings, correspondence, diaries); the Oswald Jonas Collection (papers, books, slides, articles, and the papers of Moriz Violin; Jonas was a student of Schenker); the Marcella Craft Collection (songbooks, scores and books; Craft was a local opera singer who performed in Munich and Vienna); and the Niels Gade Collection (papers, books, correspondence, arrangements, etc.; Gade was a Danish composer).

Performance
Students have ample opportunities to perform in a remarkably wide variety of ensembles, both Western and non-Western. The ensemble directors and vocal and instrumental instructors are among the leading professionals in their respective areas in Southern California. Throughout each academic year the Department of Music and Cultural Events sponsor more than 50 formal and informal concerts and recitals by campus ensembles, students, members of the performance faculty, and distinguished visiting artists. Most of the Department’s concerts are open to the public.

Scholarships
Students have access to student assistantships, work-study, Gluck Fellowships, and scholarships such as the Chancellor’s Performance Award and William Reynolds Carillon Scholarship. Graduate students may qualify for fellowship assistance and teaching or research assistantships. For further information or a department tour, call the Music Department, (951) 827-3343.