Music Department

Department of Music

Led by an internationally acclaimed faculty of composers, performers, conductors, music theorists, historians, musicologists, ethnomusicologists and technology innovators, the Dartmouth Department of Music is at the cutting edge of the discipline.

Dartmouth is a place where arts and artists flourish, where musical journeys can be launched and take unexpected turns, and where exceptional resources, both human and institutional, are available to support creative work.

Dartmouth's Department of Music has a long tradition of excellence and adventurousness. Members of the music faculty enjoy getting to know the students who take our classes, whether or not they end up as majors or minors.

We offer many different ways to study music, and many different kinds of music to study. Our curriculum features a broad range of classroom courses as well as diverse opportunities for performance studies with top-notch professionals, as well as concerts, festivals, colloquia and masterclasses that bring together students, faculty and artists-in-residence in a variety of roles: performers, composers, conductors, curators and producers.

Students do not have to be music majors or minors to participate in the Hopkins Center ensembles or take the department's Individual Instruction Program lessons.

More on Music

The Language-Music Connection

During a fall 2018 residency, Burkinabe musician Mamadou Diabaté co-taught a class—along with Dartmouth professors Laura McPherson (Linguistics) and Theodore Levin (Music)—exploring an African language so tonal and rhythmic that it can be “spoken” by the xylophone-like balafon.

Contact Us

Contact Information

For more information about the Music Department, please contact Sam Candon at: