The
music history department at Manhattan School of Music is comprised
of both full- and part-time faculty. The faculty includes eminent
musicologists, distinguished composers, and active performers. As
a service department, the music history department makes courses
available to students in all degree programs in all majors. The
School does not confer degrees in music history.
The department offers a variety of courses both introductory and
advanced. There are survey courses by period (Music in the Middle
Ages & Renaissance, Music in the Baroque, Music in the Classic
& Romantic, Music in the 20th Century), genre courses
(History of Jazz, Non-Western Music, History of Opera, History of
Chamber Music, History of the Symphony), composer courses (Bach,
Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Verdi, Stravinsky, Duke Ellington), literature
courses (Organ Literature, Piano Literature, English & American
Vocal Literature, German Vocal Literature, French Vocal Literature),
and special topics courses (Music in America, Venice, 1924, Performance
Practice, Operas of Strauss and Berg and Britten).
Unique to Manhattan School of Music is the undergraduate Unified
Core Curriculum, which was initiated by the music history department
in 1994. During the freshman and sophomore years, students in the
classical division immerse themselves in the Unified Core Curriculum,
a sequence of courses especially designed to unify, coordinate,
and integrate basic studies in music theory, music history, and
the humanities. The core sequence includes seminars in which students
actively participate through discussion and writing and lecture
classes where concepts of theory, music history, and the progression
of Western civilization are described. The Unified Core Curriculum
prepares the undergraduate student to take specialized elective
courses in the junior and senior years.
The music history department has been chaired since 1981 by the American
composer David Noon. 
