It is my pleasure to welcome you to The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, home to a faculty of some of the world’s leading performers, scholars and industry professionals. Our dynamic students produce original albums and pioneering scholarship. We host more than 200 cultural events every year that feature our more than fifty resident ensembles and esteemed guests. At our heart, we are a community committed to curiosity, collaboration and distinction.
Being a school of music means more than just housing three different academic departments, two interdisciplinary programs, and seven different musical programs and centers. It means actively breaking down barriers that have separated musical traditions and, in many cases, separated the study of music from music’s performance. It is my firm belief that the two are inseparable. Music, like all art, exists within the world—not apart from it. It defines local communities and global ones. It gives cultures their distinct character even as it bends toward a universal language. It can be a source of sublime joy and shared meaning. It can unite us and, at times, divide us. To understand music’s relationship to communities and humanity, we must study it. To study it meaningfully, we must experience it. And in our school of music, we do both.
Our students at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music thrive in an environment that encourages them to explore and experiment. Classical cello performance majors can learn improvisation in a string jazz combo. Musicologists can learn the rich music and dance traditions of Ghana by active participation. Students can have the opportunity to play a Stradivarius violin or learn how to perform on the Khjai Mendung (Venerable Dark Cloud), our 82-piece gamelan ensemble. And whatever students’ major—ethnomusicology, global jazz studies, music education, musicology, music industry, composition or performance—they will be able to study theory and practice in ways that will nurture their knowledge and artistry.
I also want to invite the larger Los Angeles community into our theaters. We host over 200 events every year, the vast majority of which are free and open to the public. I encourage you to explore our event calendar or subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed about upcoming performances, lectures and discussions. We are also committed to bringing our performances out into the community. Through our Gluck music ensembles, we arrange free performances at libraries, schools and nursing homes. We have a Music Partnership Program that brings music instruction to Los Angeles youth through community collaborations. And we livestream many of our events to allow people who cannot travel to join us from their homes. Music is for everyone, and we want to share our music with you.
This—all of this—is what makes The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music a special place. We are scholars, musicians, composers and artists with a mission to esteem and nurture global musical traditions while encouraging the creation of new music and groundbreaking scholarship. We thrive on diverse approaches and boundless curiosity. We share a commitment to excellence and a respect for our artistic and intellectual differences. And together we are excited to support music and scholarship in the twenty-first century.
Michael Beckerman
