About Us
BE PART OF THE MUSIC.
Welcome to the University of Alberta's Department of Music. Since 1945, we have been an active part of Edmonton's and Alberta's diverse musical community, contributing innovative research and creative activity, inspiring performances, and informing musical leadership at the local, national, and international levels.
UAlberta Music nurtures those who want to play, sing, listen, conduct, ask questions about music, write it, write about it, do community or professional work with it, teach it and research it from across Canada and around the world. From our vibrant programs to our world-leading instructors and researchers, we are constantly working to better equip students with the skills they need to progress in their professional, creative, and life journeys. As a team, we are driven to inspire students, to facilitate opportunities for them, and to broaden their intellectual and musical horizons - all while supporting engaged and inclusive learning for everyone.
Our programs have been developed to ensure up-to-date and focused training relevant to any career or musical dream you might have, while encouraging you to discover practices and cultures yet unfamiliar, or to ask new questions about familiar musics. We are committed to continuing the traditions of music and research excellence our department has long been known for, both nationally and internationally: we are the home to the most established choral conducting program in Canada; to coaching for performing and understanding Western art repertories at the highest standards; to groundbreaking research on music technology and popular musics; to the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, which since 1992 has promoted activities to improve the world through music. We strive to be ever more inspired to work and learn on the traditional lands of Papaschase Cree and the homeland of the Métis Nation. Inspired to acknowledge the colonial past, to empower each other in the present, and to envision a future of outstanding achievements, discovery, and citizenship in better and fairer creative communities.
Our department is home to up to 60 graduate students annually who are developing creative new projects in performance, composition, conducting, and research. Ncounters, our graduate student conference, and Intonations, a Fine Arts graduate student journal, offer the graduate student body opportunities to disseminate their work and engage with the greater academic community.
We offer a public (in-person and live-streamed) Colloquium Series called Questions About Music with our faculty and visiting speakers in conversation to debate some of the most pressing issues in matters of research, performance, composition, music education and more. We support graduate and undergraduate research and performance through countless public concerts and research presentations. UAlberta Music also hosts weekly events curated by the Sound Studies Institute and the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, advancing the conversation on a number of key artistic and research topics. These activities are unique to the University of Alberta and are used regularly by our staff and students as well as by researchers and institutions around the world.
Our graduates live life out loud: in orchestras, bands, choruses, opera companies, and in studios, music schools, research institutes, community foundations and universities around the world. UAlberta Music alumni make valuable contributions to the fields of performance, composition, scholarship, arts administration, and music therapy, and in the film, broadcasting and recording arts industries.
Whether you are looking to grow - personally and professionally - in areas of performance, research, research creation, activism, community work, education, conducting, or composition, we invite you to be part of the music!