Master of Music - Composition

Program Description

​The Master of Music in composition program offers students one-on-one instruction with DePaul’s distinguished faculty of active composers, as well as seminars with guest composers and performers from Chicago and across the country. Graduate composition majors have their compositions performed at DePaul Composers Forum, a quarterly student composition concert, and second-year students may have a composition read through and recorded by the DePaul Chamber Orchestra. Graduate student compositions may also be performed by other DePaul ensembles, including Ensemble 20+, the Contemporary Music Ensemble. DePaul also offers two assistantships to graduate composition students.​​​​​ The Master of Music in composition is a two-year program.​​​​​​

Students will be able to:

• Demonstrate basic music research techniques and apply knowledge of standard reference tools and bibliographic sources to the writing of a variety of professional and academic music texts.
• Develop an expanded global, historical, and cultural understanding of music through the in-depth study of musical elements, compositional processes, and aesthetic properties.
• Compose consistently throughout the two years of the degree program, and successfully produce performances of works.
• Develop an individual compositional voice or style that reflects an awareness of prevalent musical styles and techniques of the 20th and 21st centuries and have a knowledge of works of the last 100 years that are an important part of the development of new sonorities and techniques.
• Analyze music of the common practice period as well as music of the 20th and 21st centuries.