The Mission of the School of Music

The Brigham Young University School of Music assists individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life through the study of music. We embrace the Aims of a BYU Education to be spiritually strengthening, intellectually enlarging, and character building, leading students to lifelong learning and service. As faculty members, administrators, and staff, we help our students to think clearly about diverse kinds of music and to create, perform, and teach music with excellence. We explore music within the context of a broad liberal arts education and religious instruction, infusing the lives of students with scholarly and creative experience. We believe our voice is central in bringing the highest artistic and scholarly contributions to the world while reflecting the ideals of revealed truth.

The vision of an artistic life, inspired by faith and molded in the rigor of the highest artistic standards, lies at the center of the extraordinary diversity of programs, support services, touring, creative works, and administration of the School of Music. Our intermediary goals are:

To achieve the highest professional and moral standards and to explore proven and promising pedagogical and technological methods;
To continually develop as teachers, scholars, creative artists, and citizens;
To expand the local, national, and international reputation of the School of Music through concerts and recordings, including music composed by its faculty and students; publication and touring, presentations at conferences, competitions, invited lectures, and music festivals;
To enrich the musical life of all students on and off campus by offering participation in a wide variety of ensembles and studio instruction in instruments and voice, and by offering general interest courses presenting a diverse sampling of topics in the field of music;
To offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs that meet or exceed the most exacting professional standards and to train and inspire graduates to meet the musical needs of the LDS church, the community, and the country, incorporating:

The skills, knowledge, and dispositions to be effective musician-educators;
The musical, physical, spiritual, and artistic elements of the conductor's craft;
Academic experiences in music theory and history based on richness and rigor in understanding musical languages, distinguishing the nuances of style, and grasping the ways in which styles intertwine with ideas;
Performing skills in musical theatre;
Vocal and instrumental performance, preparing students for careers as performers or artist-teachers by example, sound pedagogical principles, and practical application and feedback;
The art of improvisation, including the various styles of jazz and commercial music;
Rigorous musical and liberal arts training for media composers, songwriters, and arrangers, encouraging them to nurture the values reinforced by the BYU experience;
The technical and musical skills for recording managers;
Modern, experimental, and historical musical vocabularies in composition, while promoting the performance of new music.

The Mission of the School of Music

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