The Collegium Musicum is one of Columbia University's leading choral ensembles and has been a part of University life since the mid-1950s.
The group is connected to Columbia's core curriculum, traditionally singing Josquin's Ave Maria...virgo serena for Music Humanities classes. Although in the past the Collegium has devoted itself to the performance of music of the middle ages and Renaissance—that by composers like Machaut, Josquin, Palestrina, Ockeghem, Tallis, and Monteverdi—in recent years the Collegium has broadened its repertoire to embrace works of all historical epochs, including 20th-century and contemporary music.
The director of Collegium Musicum for the 2023-2024 academic year is Justin Gregg (jtg2141 [at] columbia.edu).
Thank you to everyone who attended our Fall 2023 concert on December 4th! The recording of the concert will be posted here once it is finalized.
For those who are interested in joining Collegium for the Spring 2024 semester, auditions will be held during the first week of classes. More information will be posted here in January, but feel free to contact Justin with any questions in the meantime.
Upcoming
Sorry, there are not currently any upcoming events.
Check out our event archives and back here soon for the latest events.
Please also join the email list to receive information on future events.
Events Archive
1969–1970
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Saturday, November 1, 1969St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Sunday, May 17, 1970St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
1970–1971
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Sunday, November 1, 1970St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Saturday, December 5, 1970
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Saturday, May 22, 1971St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
1971–1972
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Monday, November 1, 1971St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Friday, December 24, 1971
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Saturday, December 25, 1971
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Tuesday, February 1, 1972
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Wednesday, March 1, 1972
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Saturday, April 1, 1972
1972–1973
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Wednesday, November 1, 1972
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Friday, December 1, 1972
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Sunday, April 1, 1973
1996–1997
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Friday, April 18, 1997
1997–1998
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Saturday, December 6, 1997
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Saturday, April 18, 1998
1998–1999
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Saturday, December 12, 1998
2001–2002
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Sunday, December 30, 2001 - 8:00pm to Monday, December 31, 2001 - 7:55pmSt Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
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Sunday, February 3, 2002 - 2:00pm to Monday, February 4, 2002 - 1:55pmPhilosophy Hall, Columbia University
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Saturday, April 20, 2002 - 8:00pm to Sunday, April 21, 2002 - 7:55pmSt Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2002–2003
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Friday, November 15, 2002 - 8:00pm to Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 7:55pmEarl Hall, Columbia University
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Monday, November 18, 2002St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Friday, April 11, 2003 - 8:00pm to Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 7:55pmSanders Theater, Harvard University
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Saturday, May 3, 2003 - 8:00pm to Sunday, May 4, 2003 - 7:55pmSt Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2003–2004
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Thursday, April 1, 2004
2004–2005
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Monday, November 1, 2004St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Friday, April 1, 2005St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
2006–2007
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Tuesday, December 5, 2006St Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
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Friday, April 13, 2007St Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2007–2008
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
2008–2009
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 8:00pm to Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - 7:55pmSt. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009St Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
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Saturday, April 4, 2009Italian Academy, Columbia University
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009St Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2009–2010
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 8:00pm to Thursday, April 1, 2010 - 7:55pmSt Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 8:00pm to Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 7:55pmPhilosophy Hall, Columbia University
2010–2011
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Monday, December 6, 2010 - 8:00pm to Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - 7:55pmSt Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
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Friday, February 4, 2011Ailey Citigroup Theater
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Saturday, February 5, 2011Ailey Citigroup Theater
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Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 8:00pm to Sunday, March 27, 2011 - 7:55pmPhilosophy Hall, Columbia University
2012–2013
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - 8:00pm to Thursday, December 6, 2012 - 7:55pmSt. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2015–2016
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Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - 8:00pm to Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 7:55pmSt. Paul's Chapel; 1160 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027
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Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - 7:00pm to Thursday, April 21, 2016 - 6:55pmSt. Paul's Chapel, 1160 Amsterdam Ave, New York
2017–2018
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - 7:00pm to Thursday, April 19, 2018 - 6:55pmSaint Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2019–2020
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Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 7:00pm to Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 6:55pmSt. Paul's Chapel
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Wednesday, April 29, 2020
2021–2022
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Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 7:00pmSt. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
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Thursday, May 5, 2022 - 7:00pmSt. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2022–2023
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Monday, September 12, 2022 - 5:30pm to Tuesday, September 13, 2022 - 9:30pm
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Monday, December 5, 2022 - 7:00pm
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Saturday, March 25, 2023 - 9:00am to 6:30pm
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Monday, May 1, 2023 - 7:00pmSt. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
2023–2024
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Monday, December 4, 2023 - 7:00pm
History
The Collegium Musicum has been performing for the Columbia community for nearly sixty years. Founded in the mid-1950s, the Collegium was first conceived as an opportunity for graduate students in musicology to experience early music in a performance context that was tightly integrated with the academic curriculum.
Previous directors have founded or are currently directors of notable choral ensembles, including Capella Nova (Richard Taruskin), Pomerium (Alexander Blachly), and Anonymous 4 (Susan Hellauer, also director of the Collegium Musicum at Queen's College), and Eric Rice (the Collegium Musicum of the University of Connecticut). Historic recordings of the Collegium can still be found at Minstrel Records.
Lineage of Directorship
- Unknown - 1955–1969
- Noah Greenberg - 1957
- Harold Brown - 1958–1961
- Robert Croan - 1957–1958
- Stoddard Lincoln - 1958
- Henry Bloch - 1959–1962
- Cecil Isaac - 1959–1961
- Austin Clarkson - 1959–1961
- Peter Flanders - 1960–1962
- J Newman - 1961
- Hendrik van der Werf - 1962–1963
- Walter Hilse - 1965
- Kenneth Cooper - 1967
- Richard Taruskin - 1969–1971
- Alexander Blachly - 1971–1973
- Paul Hawkshaw - 1976–1977
- Robert Myers - 1977–1978
- Peter Lefferts - 1979
- Susan Hellauer - 1979–1981
- Lucy Cross - 1981–1982
- Mary Monroe - 1983
- Wendy Powers - 1983–1984
- Michael Rogan - 1985–1986
- Mark Ettinger - 1986
- Gregory Salmon - 1986–1988
- Angela Yeung - 1988–1990
- Susanna Lodato - 1993–1994
- Eric Rice - 1997–1998
- Ramin Arjomand - 2000
- David Lyczkowski - 2001–2003
- Ryan Dohoney - 2004–2005
- Michel Galante
- Sean Parr - 2006–2008
- Amber Youell - 2008–2009
- Michael Shaw - 2009–2010
- Mahir Cetiz - 2011–2013
- Matthew Ricketts
- Anne Levitsky
- Preston Smith
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Evelyn Troester DeGraf
- Russell O'Rourke
- Justin Gregg
- Liz Kiger

Eric Rice
Eric Rice (PhD, Historical Musicology, 2002), is an Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. A musicologist and conductor, Dr. Rice is a specialist in the history and performance of music composed before 1750. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music history, notation, and historical performance, and he also serves as a member of the Medieval Studies faculty.
more info...
Ramin Amir Arjomand
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Ramin Amir Arjomand is an Iranian-American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. His composition teachers include Stephen Jaffe, Gheorghe Costinescu, Fred Lerdahl, Jonathan Kramer, and Tristan Murail. His concert music has been commissioned and/or performed by Speculum Musicae, So Percussion Ensemble, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Cassatt Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the Columbia Collegium Musicum, and numerous independent ensembles and soloists in venues throughout the United States.
more info...
Ryan Dohoney
Ryan Dohoney (PhD, Musicology 2009) has been Assistant Professor of Musicology at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music since Fall 2013. Dr. Dohoney was previously Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Kansas (2012–2013), and faculty fellow in music at Colby College (2011–2013).
more info...
Michel Galante
Composer/conductor Michel Galante is the founder and artistic director of the Argento New Music Project. He has guest conducted the Royal Irish Academy of Music, St. Peterburg Symphony, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, Moscow Symphony, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Janáček Philharmonic, Artes National Orchestra, Decoda Ensemble, Ergo Ensemble, Ensemble Courage, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, TACTUS, Cornell University Chorus, Dessoff Choir, and Monday Evening Concerts Ensemble, amongst many other ensembles.
more info...
Sean Parr
Sean Parr is a 2010 alumnus of Columbia's PhD program in Historical Musicology. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Music , in the Dept. of Fine Arts, at St. Anselm College.
For current information please visit his faculty page.
more info...

Amber Youell
Amber Youell is an Executive Team Member of Morningside Opera. She is a mezzo-soprano and 18th-century scholar who loves wigs and coloratura. In October 2012, she completed her PhD in historical musicology from Columbia University, with a dissertation on opera, fashion, money, and politics at the court of Empress Maria Theresia. For Morningside's 2009 production of Alcide al bivio, Amber constructed a performance score from manuscript and acted as dramaturg.
more info...
Mahir Cetiz
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Mahir Cetiz is a Core Lecturer in Music Humanities. Born in Ankara, Turkey in 1977, he received his undergraduate degree in music performance in 1998 from Ankara State Conservatory, where he studied cello, piano and composition. Following his undergraduate studies, Cetiz earned his master's degree in composition from the University of Memphis (U.S.A.) and in conducting from Hacettepe University (Turkey). In the year 2000, he won a scholarship from British Council, which enabled him to continue his studies with Anthony Gilbert, at "Royal Northern College of Music".
more info...
Anne Levitsky
Lecturer in Music
WebsiteAnne Adele Levitsky is a scholar and musician living in New York City. She is a graduate of Stanford University and earned her PhD in Historical Musicology from Columbia University in May 2018. She is a Lecturer at Columbia for the 2018-2019 academic year, and has also taught at Stony Brook University. As an academic, she is interested in medieval vernacular song and Old French and Occitan poetry and narrative literature.
more info...
Evelyn Troester Degraf
Ghostlight ChorusDr. Evelyn Troester DeGraf is the choral director and cantor at Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, as well as the founder and artistic director of the internationally-acclaimed chamber choir GHOSTLIGHT, an ensemble she guided to prize-winning performances at the 2015 International Chamber Choir competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany. A versatile musician, conductor, and music educator, Dr.
more info...
Russell O'Rourke
Core Lecturer, Music Humanities
Russell O’Rourke is a Core Lecturer in Music Humanities at Columbia University, where he earned his PhD in Historical Musicology in 2020.
more info...
Justin Gregg
PhD Student in Historical Musicology
Justin Gregg is a PhD candidate in Historical Musicology at Columbia University, where he began in the Fall of 2018. His research broadly revolves around the intersections between music and European politics during the interwar period; he is working on a dissertation titled “Mahler, Politicized: Musical Diplomacy and Internationalism in the 1920 Mahler Festival,” under the guidance of Prof. Walter Frisch.
more info...
Liz Kiger
Director of Collegium Musicum
Liz Kiger is a Turkish-American non-binary soprano vocalist, violinist, and opera director specializing in Baroque performance practice. They are the founder and director of the Brooklyn Telemann Chamber Society, one of the first primarily digital opera companies, focused on providing LGBTQIA emerging artists with opportunities reinterpreting Baroque operas as feature films, thereby bringing opera to new audiences through inclusion and accessibility. Their work with BTCS has been featured on numerous podcasts and most notably via @360ofopera and OperaWire.com.
more info...Video
Collegium Musicum Winter 2015 concert
St. Paul's Chapel
Preston Smith, Director