Welcome to the Music Department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey!  A vibrant and rapidly growing community of scholars and performers, we are located on the university’s Douglass Campus in New Brunswick, little more than an hour away from Philadelphia and much closer still to New York City.  Our students greatly profit from the abundant cultural and professional opportunities afforded by these metropolitan areas.  Furthermore, they enjoy the riches of being part of one of the nation’s largest and most respected research universities, with its diverse and nearly unlimited array of intellectual activities.  Ultimately, however, students are drawn to the Mason Gross Music Department because of its devoted and highly distinguished body of 85 fulltime and part-time faculty and the outstanding education they offer.

At Mason Gross, the two principal approaches to the study of music—academic research and performance—coexist to mutual benefit.  Choosing from the full range of degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, students may major in one of three different areas: Classical Performance, Jazz, or Music Education.  Moreover, graduate studies include master’s and doctoral degrees in both Musicology and Theory/Composition.  Through rigorous training in various historical and theoretical disciplines as well as musical performance, we provide an ideal learning environment for students seeking a comprehensive education.  Small wonder, then, that in recent years, we have seen a drastic increase in enrollment, which now exceeds 520 students.  Concurrently, the Music Department has greatly improved its public image to become one of the nation’s leading institutions in training professional musicians. 

The following Web pages will further detail our programs.  However, what matters most in art cannot be captured with words alone.  You are therefore cordially invited to our public concerts, lecture demonstrations, and recitals, of which we average more than 200 per year!

Regards,

Antonius Bittmann

Chairman, Department of Music