Music Department
The educational opportunities in the Music Department are a result of the combination of talents, education and interests of the faculty in the department. It is that dynamic that we tailor to the college's mission of a liberal arts education. We believe that music is essential to a liberal arts curriculum and that it is critical to human development and successful living. The discipline of music is particularly well suited to fostering creativity and critical/analytic thinking skills in students. And finally, we encourage all students in the performing arts to take risks and to understand how creative endeavors relate to a variety of disciplines.
The goals of the Music Department are:
- To prepare music majors for a career in music, graduate study or teacher certification in music.
- To provide opportunities for students of all majors to develop an academic and aesthetic understanding of music and to prepare them for a lifetime of music making, listening and concert attendance.
- To provide concerts, recitals and musical education for the community-at-large as a means to showcase individual students, chamber ensembles, and large vocal and wind/percussion ensembles.
- To enhance campus life by providing music at College functions and by serving as musical ambassadors for the College.
- To showcase the music faculty by providing performances for the college and community. In addition, the music faculty is committed to musical/professional endeavors and contributes to the community by performing off-campus, serving as coordinators and adjudicators for music competitions and festivals, and participating in professional organizations, departmental development activities, Caldwell Fine Arts, and in-service training events.
Music courses, ensembles and applied music instruction in voice, strings (violin, viola, and cello), and piano are open to all students if space is available, provided that they can satisfy the course prerequisites and requirements. Music majors may earn a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in vocal or instrumental music education, applied voice, applied strings, composition/theory, general music or business and the arts.
Students are admitted as music majors or minors on the basis of an audition and placement exams. All transfer students wishing to major or minor in music are subject to the Department's audition and placement policies. Information on the audition and placement process is available in the Music Department office, on the departmental web pages or from Admissions.
The Music Department is housed in the Langroise Center for the Performing and Fine Arts, which features a 188-seat recital hall. Additional classes and concerts take place in Jewett Auditorium, which includes an outstanding concert hall equipped with a 48-rank Casavant Freres pipe organ and two conservatory grand pianos. Nationally prominent concert artists are featured annually here through the Caldwell Fine Arts series.
The Music Department fosters an enhanced appreciation of the performing arts through the many performances in the Langroise Recital Hall, which is also home to a yearly series of concerts by the Langroise Trio, artists-in-residence (a rarity in a college of this size). The three performers, violinist Geoffrey Trabichoff, violist David Wayne Johnson, and cellist Samuel Whitney Smith, form our string faculty and prepare students to the highest levels demanded by the profession. The trio was established in 1991 and bears the name of the late arts patron Gladys Langroise.
Students have ample opportunities to perform in solo recitals, musical theatre, opera, ensemble concerts and in area churches. The annual choir tour has taken students to such locales as Europe, Canada, the Pacific Northwest, California, and Hawaii.
The department offers a unique chamber music experience through the new Cerveny Chamber Music Institute, with intensive training in violin, viola and cello within a traditional liberal arts curriculum. The residency of the Langroise Trio provides very close contact that includes applied lessons, chamber music coaching, orchestral practicum, weekly master classes or recitals and chamber music performances. Advanced students may occasionally be invited to appear as guest artists with the Langroise Trio. In addition, advanced students are encouraged to audition for a Boise Philharmonic Orchestra apprenticeship, which will enable them to perform with a metropolitan level professional orchestra while in school.