Music Degrees Online

In a way that honors and celebrates our membership in a small, liberal arts, honors college community, we offer a curriculum modeled on the best features of music conservatories, large university schools of music, and large university undergraduate liberal arts programs. We seek to provide the best possible education to highly talented students as well as to attract a well rounded, balanced and mutually supportive community of musicians-in-training. We strive to present to students a full range of musical opportunities. Their studies, in both academics and performance, are guided with a high level of personal attention by musicians of the first rank.

Our numerous college-level and professional-level performance activities provide a substantial educational foundation and serve as an important cultural resource for our region. The unique summer international and orchestral programs offer students the opportunity to expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of worlds beyond their own by engaging in conservatory-like, pre-professional training here and abroad. These endeavors, taken together, are intended to prepare our students for advanced training and careers in a variety of fields such as performance, arts administration, music scholarship, and education.

We provide a wide range of musical experiences for the non-music-major liberal arts student as well. For these students, we offer instrumental and vocal instruction (private and class), the opportunity to participate in a variety of excellent ensembles, and course work that supports an understanding of music in its wider historical, social, cultural, and geographical contexts. Our ultimate goal for these students is to instill or to deepen in them an appreciation, affection, and respect for music specifically and the arts generally. Participation in our musical activities helps to reinforce the vital role that the arts play in students’ lives, and leads to what we hope will be a rich, life-long, life affirming association, no matter what life paths they choose to pursue.

In a way that honors and celebrates our membership in a small, liberal arts, honors college community, we offer a curriculum modeled on the best features of music conservatories, large university schools of music, and large university undergraduate liberal arts programs. We seek to provide the best possible education to highly talented students as well as to attract a well rounded, balanced and mutually supportive community of musicians-in-training. We strive to present to students a full range of musical opportunities. Their studies, in both academics and performance, are guided with a high level of personal attention by musicians of the first rank.

Our numerous college-level and professional-level performance activities provide a substantial educational foundation and serve as an important cultural resource for our region. The unique summer international and orchestral programs offer students the opportunity to expand their horizons and deepen their understanding of worlds beyond their own by engaging in conservatory-like, pre-professional training here and abroad. These endeavors, taken together, are intended to prepare our students for advanced training and careers in a variety of fields such as performance, arts administration, music scholarship, and education.

We provide a wide range of musical experiences for the non-music-major liberal arts student as well. For these students, we offer instrumental and vocal instruction (private and class), the opportunity to participate in a variety of excellent ensembles, and course work that supports an understanding of music in its wider historical, social, cultural, and geographical contexts. Our ultimate goal for these students is to instill or to deepen in them an appreciation, affection, and respect for music specifically and the arts generally. Participation in our musical activities helps to reinforce the vital role that the arts play in students’ lives, and leads to what we hope will be a rich, life-long, life affirming association, no matter what life paths they choose to pursue.

The music program at Luther builds a strong fundamental knowledge of theory, history, music literature, and performance. The department offers an excellent core curriculum that may be supplemented with specialty courses in a student’s area of interest.

Music majors may choose from the following areas of concentration: music education, vocal or instrumental performance, church music, music history, music theory, and music composition. The college also offers courses in opera, electronic music, chamber music, and music management. Luther College hosts more than 160 concerts and recitals annually, six Dorian festivals for high school students, and two Dorian summer music camps.

Instrumental ensembles at Luther include Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, Concert Band, Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Band, Wind and Percussion Ensemble, Varsity Band, and a wide variety of smaller chamber ensembles. Vocal music students participate in Nordic Choir, Collegiate Chorale, Cathedral Choir, Norsemen, Aurora, and Cantorei. Instrumentalists, who play recorders, viols, and other period instruments, and vocalists participate in Collegium Musicum, an ensemble specializing in music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.

Luther is committed to the idea that music is important in the lives of all students. Any student, regardless of major, is eligible to audition for an ensemble or take private lessons. In fact, more than half of the nearly 1,000 students taking private lessons are majors in other areas. Students receive academic credit for these lessons, although the cost is not included in the comprehensive fee. Prospective students may audition for a Weston Noble Music Scholarship, as well as for a one-year lesson scholarship.

Music scholarships are offered in amounts up to $3000 per year. Scholarships are given primarily to music majors and minors; some scholarships are also available to instrumentalists and vocalists for participation in ensembles, and to pianists for accompanying. Music Department scholarships are granted independently of and in addition to any other scholarships or aid that may be offered by Lipscomb University.

Any incoming freshman student who has already passed the Grade 8 Exam of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and wishes to major in music automatically qualifies for a music scholarship of $1000 per semester. Students do not have to audition to receive this scholarship, but merely present documentation that they have passed the Grade 8 Exam.

Music Scholarship Audition Guidelines

The following guidelines should be followed in preparing for a music scholarship audition.

Keyboard: Applicants should prepare two pieces by memory from contrasting periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, or Contemporary). Be prepared to sight-read.

Winds: Applicants should prepare two pieces of contrasting style, and be prepared to sight-read.

Strings: Applicants should prepare two pieces of contrasting style, and be prepared to sight-read.

Percussion: Applicants should prepare two pieces, one with snare drum and one with mallets (or tympani), and be prepared to sight-read. Drum set can be a third option on request.

Voice: Applicants should prepare two art songs, preferably from different style periods such as Early Italian, Old English, German, French, or 20th-Century British or American (example: one Early Italian and one German art song). Selections should be memorized. An aria from the opera or oratorio repertory may be substituted as one of the selections. Original language of the composition is preferred but not mandatory. Be prepared to sight-read and demonstrate tonal memory.

Music Scholarship Requirements

Voice scholarship recipients are required to participate in at least one choral ensemble. Wind and percussion scholarship recipients are required to participate in Concert Band. String and guitar scholarship recipients are required to participate in Chamber Ensembles (Jazz Band may also fulfill this requirement for guitar or bass). Keyboard scholarship recipients are required to take accompanying (either for 1 hour credit or non-credit) each semester they are on scholarship. Music majors whose major instrument is piano must accompany for credit for at least two semesters.

All scholarship recipients must meet the following requirements:
Scholarship students will usually take private lessons on their major instrument. They must possess a good attitude, maintain interest and industry, and evidence progress through practice. They will be encouraged to perform regularly.
Students must maintain a 3.0 grade point average in music courses over the course of each year.
Students must avoid any type of probation.

Students will be evaluated by the music faculty at the end of each year to determine if the scholarship will be continued, increased, decreased, or discontinued. Current students who are not receiving scholarships, or who wish to apply for scholarship consideration in a different performance area, may contact the Department Chairman to request an audition.

The Lipscomb Department of Music is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music. Member schools of NASM are not allowed to accept students on scholarship who have previously accepted scholarships from another member school.

Scheduling a Scholarship Audition
The 2008-2009 Scholarship Audition Days are Friday, November 14th, 2008; Saturday, February 7th, 2009; and Saturday, February 28th, 2009. Individual audition also may be arranged, with the understanding that students auditioning on or before scheduled Audition Days will receive consideration before those who audition after the scheduled dates.