Message from the Director

From the Director of the School of Music

Dr. George T. Riordan

Welcome to our website! The MTSU School of Music at Middle Tennessee State University serves some 300 undergraduate and 30 graduate music majors drawn from throughout the nation and abroad, studying in 10 Bachelor of Music and 9 Master of Arts degree programs. A total of 3,200 MTSU students take music classes each year; many participate as music minors or in ensembles and various music classes, ranging from the 320-strong Band of Blue football marching band, to small jazz combos and string quartets.

The School of Music boasts an artist-faculty of 34 full-time and 34 adjunct faculty, who perform, compose, teach, conduct, publish and present continually, from Hong Kong to Rome, while instructing students in studies in Western classical and jazz music theory, history, education and performance. Applied music study is offered on all orchestral, keyboard and jazz instruments and voice. The School's low faculty-to-student ratio enables a high quality of personalized instruction and learning.

The School is one of only a handful of All-Steinway Schools in the world. The School is fully accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.

The School produces over 180 concerts and events each year that run the gamut from individual student recitals to fully-produced operas, and includes performers that range from students to international soloists to full symphony orchestra.

The School offers its students performing opportunities that include five wind bands, two orchestras, four choral ensembles, two jazz big bands, an opera company and workshop, myriad jazz combos, chamber music groups and instrumental ensembles, an old time music group, percussion ensembles, a Steel Drum Ensemble, and a Salsa Band that regularly entertains at a club just across Greenland Drive.

The School of Music annually sponsors some 14 workshops and festivals that offer opportunities and training for between 4,000 and 5,000 middle and high school students and music educators drawn from throughout the region and beyond. The School hosts four youth and community ensembles on a weekly basis, and cooperative arrangements exist with professional music associations that stage regular events at MTSU. The national Orpheus Competition is held in the school, in partnership with the Middle Tennessee Choral Society.

MTSU School of Music alumni teach thousands of students every day in schools and private studios, perform in orchestras and with opera companies, appear in clubs with the famous and yet-to-be-known, write music for Hollywood films, run organizations, train church choirs, inspire college students, and continually enrich the lives of many as their sacred calling.

E-mail Dr. Riordan