UCLA’s Department of Musicology is one of the most successful graduate programs in American musicology. Recent alumni of the department teach at the University of Michigan, UT Austin, UC Irvine, Michigan State, Dalhousie University, Bates College, and other schools across the nation and the world. Our intellectual community is strikingly diverse, with U.S. graduate students from all regions of the country, international students from Canada, Mexico, Holland, Bermuda, Guatemala and Korea, and visiting scholars from as far away as China and the Ukraine.
As a training-ground for the next generation of adventurous, inventive music scholars, our Ph.D. program develops students’ creative and critical voices in a wide variety of chosen subfields; provides them with rich opportunities for establishing intellectual and professional networks; and gives them pedagogical training and experience second to none. Our graduate seminars explore topics and theories from musical Nationalism to the history of improvisation, musical camp to Dufay, opéra-comique to hands-on explorations of “public musicology.” Current graduate research interests include (but are by no means limited to!) David Bowie, Soviet music theory pedagogy, early modern anglophone devotional poetry and song, proto-punk musical experimentalism, music as cultural diplomacy during the Pan American era, 17th- and 18th-century operatic adaptations of Shakespeare’s works, music in marginal cinemas (horror, slasher, etc.).
The UCLA Musicology department normally enrolls 4-5 students per year. We accept applications for the Ph.D. only (an M.A. is normally awarded to eligible students after two years). The department is committed to competitive multi-year packages of support, and at the present time can usually guarantee a minimum of one year of fellowship and three plus years of teaching assistantship to incoming students. Students normally graduate 5-6 years after matriculation.
