Professional Development and Activities

Colloquia

At frequent intervals during the year, guests on campus are invited to give colloquia in the department. Colloquia are given in all areas of interest to the Music Department. All graduate students are expected to attend these colloquia.

Professional Strategies and Skills Course

The Department now has a dedicated one-semester graduate course, GR6000, Professional Strategies and Skills, offered on Fridays in the Fall. All students are required to take Professional Strategies and Skills in the Fall of the second year.The course consolidates  two components of the systematic professional training and pedagogical formation of graduate students in the Department of Music. GR6000 is taught by the chair of the Core Curriculum course, Masterpieces of Western Music (Music Humanities). The course streamlines the process by which students in the four different doctoral degree programs (historical musicology, ethnomusicology, theory, and composition) are trained to teach their own sections of Music Humanities. Students also learn about applying for academic positions, preparing cvs, submitting journal articles, preparing book proposals, and other professional skills. This course does not count toward the credit totals for the MA, MPhil, DMA or PhD.

Professional Journals

The Gabe Wiener Music & Arts Library subscribes to most major journals in music. You are expected to follow them regularly, reading many of the important articles. You are expected to remain current with your discipline in this manner. Both the general examination and the proposal defense will test this knowledge.

Current Musicology

Current Musicology is a scholarly journal that has appeared semi-annually since 1965. It is managed and edited by graduate students at Columbia and is published under the aegis of the Department of Music. The oldest periodical of its kind in the world, it offers a unique opportunity for graduate students who join its staff to acquire and develop their skills in editing, writing, bibliography, translating, reviewing, and researching (not to mention business, finance, and advertising), and also to become acquainted with scholars, both in this country and abroad. All graduate students intending to continue to the Ph.D. are expected to work for the journal.

The editorship and assistant editorship are departmental appointments.

Collegium Musicum

Collegium Musicum is a specialist music performance group. Its purpose is to explore -- by sight-reading, rehearsal, and concert -- vocal and instrumental music of a relatively unfamiliar nature: music which has perhaps been neglected and deserves revived attention. It offers opportunities for students to examine the music of their research and other interests and to actualize it in sound rather than solely to study it in score. It can thus function as a "laboratory" of musicological inquiry.

The group meets weekly and gives concerts at least once a semester. The repertory consists largely but not exclusively of early music. More recent music is sometimes included. The directorship of the Collegium Musicum is held each year by a graduate student. The group is open to members of the University beyond the confines of the Music Department. Graduate students in music are urged to participate. They will find it a rewarding and absorbing activity.