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1. Welcome from the Director
Welcome to the School of Music & Dance at SJSU from all the faculty and staff. We offer graduate students outstanding teaching from world-renowned performers, scholars, and composers; an excellent library to support your studies, including the unique resources of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies; opportunities to perform as soloist or in the chorus of the professional opera company, Opera San José; and the good fortune to study in one of the most beautiful and culturally diverse areas in the United States.
We offer you opportunities to perform solos on and off campus, to conduct ensembles on and off campus, to participate in many different performing organizations, to compose your own music, to take part in festivals and conferences, and to undertake research with the guidance of the faculty.
Music resources are located in the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, a 177-million dollar joint project of the University and the City of San José. An eight-story building, the Library is also home to the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, the only research and study center in the Americas devoted solely to the composer. The SJSU music collection includes over 16,000 books, 16,500 scores, 5,000 CDs and another 13,000 LP recordings, and 28 print periodical subscriptions. Other online resources include full text databases (such as The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the JSTOR Music Collection archive of journal articles) and indexes (Music Index, RILM, and Music in Print). Students have access to these and many other online databases from computers at home as well as on campus. Also readily available are the San José Public Library's collections of sheet music and scores, music books, and sound recordings.
The masters program at SJSU will help prepare you for a career as a teacher or performer, give you the credentials needed to teach at a junior or community college, enhance your public or private school teaching, and prepare you to undertake doctoral work upon completion of your degree. The program can be completed in three semesters by full-time students, and part-time students have up to seven years to complete their degree. Core classes are offered during the late afternoon to accommodate teachers.
San José, located at the south end of the San Francisco Bay, is ranked as the eleventh largest city in the country. It is home to the highly acclaimed Opera San José, a vibrant chamber music society, the innovative San José Chamber Symphony, Symphony Silicon Valley, art museums, the "Tech," theater companies, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, and downtown San José, which has been transformed in the last two decades. Nearby attractions include the Monterey Bay, home to the city of Santa Cruz and its famous beaches, Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur. San Francisco, with its wonderful opera house and symphony, is an hour north by car or train. Stanford University, with its excellent music library, is twenty minutes away, and the library of the University of California at Berkeley also serves as a local resource for additional student research. The world famous vineyards of Napa Valley, as well as those in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma Counties, are close by for those interested in the art of oenology.
This handbook is designed to give you a thorough overview of the program and its requirements. It includes information on various procedures, suggested programs for different emphases, a list of courses graduate students may take for credit, and information about the entrance examinations. You will also need to obtain a copy of the University catalog and refer to the section on the Graduate School. The Graduate School webpage contains a great deal of information on how to apply, and you can download the forms you will need to submit as part of your degree as you progress.
Please be sure to keep your copy of this handbook as you progress through the program. It serves as a contract between you and the School as to the requirements under which you enter, and if requirements change, you will have the choice of following either the handbook under which you entered or the new requirements.
If you decide to join us at SJSU for your masters, you will be assigned a faculty mentor and will also work with the Graduate Advisor. Together they will assist you in progressing through your career. We urge you to stay in close touch with your mentor and the Graduate Advisor. We will do everything that we can to make your progress through the program smooth and expeditious!
