Graduate Programs

Welcome from the Director of Graduate Studies

We are a five-field department with a world-class faculty, offering the MA in composition, conducting, ethnomusicology, musicology, and music theory. Our small size allows you the ability to create a tailored program of study specific to your academic interests and future goals, including interdisciplinary projects that don't easily fall within traditional lines. Our program encourages both immersion in a chosen field as well as creative thinking across disciplines. The exploration of the relationships between music, sound, and culture is our hallmark.

The Music department is housed in the beautiful Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center, which features classrooms, rehearsal spaces, the first-rate Distler Performance Hall, a world music room, a music technology lab, dedicated work and social spaces for graduate students, and the unique Lilly Music Library collection, to which students and the entire Tufts community have access. Our facilities help foster a strong sense of collaboration among students and faculty, creating an engaging learning environment.

Members of our faculty have national and international reputations in a broad range of subjects and have held leadership positions in academic societies, with academic journals, and as directors of prominent ensembles and composer/performer consortia. We value teaching and mentor our graduate students through Teaching Assistantships when available. Additionally, our relationship with the New England Conservatory and our membership in the Graduate Consortium means that students may also take courses at the New England Conservatory, Boston University, Boston College, and Brandeis University. Students may also take advantage of Tufts membership in the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality. The opportunities at Tufts are expansive and exciting.

If a doctorate (PhD or DMA) is your ultimate goal, we have a stellar record of placing students in their top-choice doctoral programs. Over the past several years students have been accepted to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Duke, the University of Chicago, UCLA, University of Virginia, King's College London, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Maryland, University of Toronto, University of Washington, and New England Conservatory, among others. Our master's program also prepares students for non-academic careers; our graduates have gone on to positions in K-12 teaching, music management, music librarianship, music performance, the film, sound recording, and music technology industries, and the non-profit sector.

We would be excited to have you join our music community.