Master of Music in Music History in West Hartford United States | University of Hartford

Hartt's music history program allows you to delve into Western music within its historical and cultural frameworks. From introductory overview classes to specialized seminars, majors and minors develop a thorough knowledge of every era of Western music. A key aspect of our curriculum is adaptable elective options tailored to your personal interests and goals, with many electives specifically created for our current student body. Recent course offerings have covered opera history, string quartet repertoire, C.P.E. Bach, pre-tonal theory, medieval influences in contemporary media, cognitive psychology, and critical editing, while students can also enroll in jazz and African-American music studies through the Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division.

Beyond Hartt's demanding academic program, you'll engage with various performance groups, such as our Baroque ensemble, the Collegium Musicum. The school's extensive collection of historical instruments - including recorders, Renaissance lutes and flutes, harpsichords, clavichords, Baroque bows, shawms, and sackbuts - offers hands-on learning opportunities. Music history undergraduates can select either our scholarly research track or performance practice specialization. The research track involves methodical examination of musical elements through academic writing, while the performance practice option merges musical performance with historical techniques, ornamentation studies, and related topics. Graduate students may focus on research, performance practice, or music history pedagogy, with the pedagogy track combining historical studies with Hartt's music education program to examine modern teaching approaches and historical methodologies.