Thomas Wells, area head
Composition
Degrees offered include Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts.
Course offerings include composition (both private lessons and a beginning course taught as a class), counterpoint, orchestration, and special-topics courses such as spectral music and film scoring.
Our composition students are a close-knit group that meets weekly in a composition seminar where students discuss their own music as well as the latest works and compositional trends and techniques. The seminar produces regular concerts of students’ work on which students often perform and conduct.
Our students are active in promoting their music nationally and internationally, winning competitions, grants, and having their work performed at national and international venues. They write for the many performing ensembles in the School of Music — Symphony Orchestra, Wind Symphony, Symphonic Band, Collegiate Winds, Ohio Show Band, Jazz Ensemble, Percussion Ensemble and various chamber groups.
The composer-in-residence program enables a student composer, selected in a competitive process, to collaborate with the Ohio State Symphony Orchestra to write a new work for that ensemble. The orchestra also reads student works in the autumn and spring semesters.
Integrative Studies is also home to the New Music Collective, a new music ensemble. Our composers benefit from visits and master classes by noted composers such as John Corigliano, Krzystof Penderecki, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Augusta Read Thomas, David Lang and others.
Our composition graduates have an excellent record of employment in academia, in film/television/game scoring, composing and arranging for military service ensembles, and in arts management. One of our composition graduates is a multiple Grammy-award winner.
Music, Media and Enterprise
Music, Media and Enterprise studies are offered as a minor.
Music, Media and Enterprise (MME) explores how music is produced and distributed, both traditionally and through emerging technologies. Students learn how music creates artistic, social and economic value and how to construct a business model to make that happen. The program provides gives students a multidisciplinary perspective on the role of music in commerce and society, and develops a foundation for further study and research in business, communication, social sciences and culture. MME students go on to careers in arts administration, audio recording, music production and as entrepreneurs.
MME has offered an interdisciplinary minor for ten years, and will play a large role in the new Bachelor of Science in Music degree, which accepted its first students in autumn semester 2019.
Want to learn more?
Future undergraduate and graduate students, explore our degree programs, application and audition details and more, in the navigation menu.
High school students, learn about outreach programs, admissions visit days, request an appointment with our admissions coordinator, and more at Undergraduate Admissions.
Questions?
- Future undergraduate students — contact Tanya Sparks, admissions coordinator, at sparks.348@osu.edu.
- Future graduate students — contact Graduate Studies at mus-grad@osu.edu.
