MUSIC HISTORY

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FACULTY

Dr. David Ake (Music History; Survey of Jazz; History of American Popular Song
Dr. Catherine Smith (Music History, Emeritus)

DEGREES
Master of Arts in Music with a concentration in musicology, including jazz and popular music studies.

The Music Department offers diverse topical courses in music history, both at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as survey courses. They include courses on film music, American music, world music, and Jazz Studies. UNR's music history courses are designed to examine music and composers in broad cultural and social contexts through highly interdisciplinary approaches, particularly at the graduate level. Among the topics explored in the graduate seminar in music history are Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera, Music Institutions, Music and Postmodernism, Aesthetics and Techniques of Program Music vs. Absolute Music, and Jazz Cultures. The Music Department regularly invites guest lecturers to provide students with an opportunity to become acquainted with current topics in musicological studies and to meet renowned musicologists in diverse areas of specialization. In 2000, The Catherine Smith Lecture series was inaugurated, which was made possible by funds that Dr. Catherine Smith, a leading feminist musicologist, donated at her retirement to sponsor guest lectures on feminist topics. Guest lecturers are not limited to musicologists but include composers and performers as well, to promote better communication with performance programs in the Department. For more information about the program in music history, contact Dr. David Ake by phone (775-784-6145) or e-mail (dake@unr.nevada.edu).