Description of BM, Music History
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Bachelor of Music in Music History
With four full-time faculty who specialize in historical research in music, the music history division of the University of Louisville School of Music offers a comprehensive undergraduate major for students earning the Bachelor of Music. Dr. Ashworth specializes in performance practice of early music and especially the Baroque period, Dr. Ong is a scholar of late 18th- and 19th-century music, including Beethoven source studies, and Dr. Shinnick is a medievalist with interdisciplinary interests. Dr. Christensen’s studies focus on music since 1900. Part-time faculty, Sean Mulhall and Michael Ramach, bring expertise in the cognate areas of ethnomusicology and music of the theater. The endowed Gerhard Herz Visiting Professor of Bach Studies provides opportunities for students to learn from guest scholars. Students enrolled in the program complete the four-semester music history sequence required of all music majors and also take 18 hours of courses, among which are four music history courses on varying topics, two hours of tutorials intended to enhance the four-semester core sequence required of all music majors, and a senior research project carrying four hours of credit. Music history majors complete this senior project under the direction of one of the division’s faculty members and conclude the project with the valuable experience of a formal discussion with the faculty. Recent senior theses in Music History at the University of Louisville have included studies of John Adams’s Harmonielehre, the history of jazz in Louisville, rhetoric in Chopin’s F-major Ballade, Opus 38, and Simon Bainbridge’s Ad ora incerta. Among the ensembles popular with music history majors are the Early Music Ensemble and the University Orchestra; students participating in these ensembles gain experience playing a wide range of repertoire. In the EME, a “performing laboratory,” students deepen their understanding of historical performance practice and participate in performance decisions concerning such aspects of early music as musica ficta and text underlay. The Dwight Anderson Memorial Library holds collections of unique resources for original research in music history. These include the Grawemeyer Collection of Contemporary Music, which comprises over 2,500 items by major composers submitted to the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition since its inception in 1985, the Ricasoli Collection of 17th - and 18th - century materials from Tuscany, and several collections of local and regional importance. The medieval facsimile collection is particularly strong. Past graduates in music history from the University of Louisville have made careers as musicologists, music librarians, arts administrators, and music critics. View the requirements for the Bachelor of Music Degree in Music History. More information is available on the Music History web page at http://www.louisville.edu/music/history. For details please contact Dr. Julia Shinnick (jwshin01@louisville.edu); or Amanda Boyd, Admissions Counselor (gomusic@louisville.edu) at the School of Music, The University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292.
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