Music composition is about creativity, imagination, communication and collaboration. It requires highly developed multilinear critical analytical skills, excellent organizational skills and a great deal of attention to detail. Music brings people from different backgrounds and communities together, enhances creativity, develops imaginations and helps you to make emotional connections with people. Several of our Music Composition program alumni have had highly successful and diverse careers as composers of abstract music and as faculty members and administrators at major institutions. Many others have successfully aligned their creative endeavors with interdisciplinary pursuits in areas such as multimedia, music for film, music therapy, music business, music and management, or entertainment law. Over the years, the Music Composition program has also graduated many alumni who have had highly successful careers in other diverse disciplines: from the sciences, to medicine, to finance, mathematics, and management.

Composition Candidates for the M.A. degree in composition must complete at least 24 semester hours of course work and must present a recital of original works including a major, extended work.