The University of Missouri School of Music prepares students to make meaningful contributions in the world as performers, composers, teachers, and scholars.

Its notable alumni include Grammy award-winning singer/ songwriter Sheryl Crow, Canadian Brass founder Eugene Watts, opera stars, Ryan MacPherson and Caroline Worra, America’s Got Talent 2008 winner, Neal Boyd, as well as members of major orchestras, arts administrators, and leaders in the field of music education.

The School of Music offers professionally oriented bachelor’s and master’s degrees in performance (brass, percussion, piano, strings, voice, and woodwinds), composition, music education, music history, and music theory. Master’s degrees are also available in conducting (choral, orchestral, and wind ensemble), collaborative piano, and piano pedagogy, and the Ph.D. is offered in music education. Another music degree option is the Bachelor of Arts in music, a degree program attracting numerous double majors, students who combine study in music and another field, drawing from the numerous academic options available on the Mizzou campus. Two certificates are offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in jazz and music entrepreneurship. These two extra credentials can be very helpful to performance majors and BA degree candidates in preparing for the job market as an entrepreneurial musician.

Major ensembles include the University Philharmonic, Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, University Band, Marching Mizzou, Concert Jazz Band, University Singers, Concert Chorale, Women’s Chorale, University Glee Club, Choral Union, and Show-Me Opera, and these are augmented by numerous chamber and studio ensembles. The Mizzou New Music Initiative brings together a full-scholarship undergraduate composition program; a graduate-assistantship-based new music ensemble, serving as a laboratory for composition students; a major summer festival for composers; and the Creating Original Music Project (COMP), an outreach program directed at composers in grades K-12.

Over 250 music majors and numerous music minors enjoy extensive interaction with the School of Music’s distinguished faculty, comprising 35 full-time and 10 part-time members. Hundreds of non-music majors also participate in School of Music activities—everything from courses such as “Jazz, Pop, and Rock” to Marching Mizzou. The School of Music is also home to several community programs housed within Community Music @ Mizzou: private lesson opportunities, Missouri String Project, Experiencing Piano, Esterhazy Chamber Music Seminar, and several options for community ensembles.

The Sinquefield Music Center opened in January 2020 with 47,000 square feet of brand new, acoustically appropriate educational space. Included in this facility are two rehearsal spaces, one for choral and one for instrumental ensembles, a state-of-the-art recording studio, twenty new practice rooms, three classrooms, and 15 faculty studios.