Graduate Course List for Fall 2026

As part of their core degree requirements, MM and DMA students must take 9 credits (3 courses) consisting of:

Additionally, students enrolled in the Musicology, Music Education, and Composition degree pathways have unique requirements that may be fulfilled by the courses listed below.

Permission
At this time, all of these courses require department permission before enrollment is granted. Please fill out the Fall 2026 Course Preferences form no later than Monday, March 30, to indicate which course(s) you'd like to take.

MUSICOLOGY

MUSIC 423 - Contemporary Issues in Popular Music Studies

Mon/Wed 8:00-9:15 AM
Prof. John Walsh
20 seats (grad & undergrad)
Department Consent Required

Explore contemporary discussions in the academic study of popular musics. Emphasis on foundations of critical and social theory, rather than music analysis. Discuss influential theories regarding mass media, music commodities, and the social construction of musical meaning as well as emerging discourses and concerns. Explore research themes related to a variety of genres, such as jazz, K-Pop, rap, and more. This is a reading-intensive course; readings will draw from musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, critical theory, sound studies, sociology, and media studies to explore questions such as “how do musicians make a living under conditions of late capitalism?”, “how do algorithms and streaming platforms shape musical taste and meanings?”, and “how does music shape the construction of identity and vice versa?” Students will craft an original research paper on a topic of their choosing.

MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Music and the Cold War"

Section 036
Mon/Wed 9:30-10:45 AM
Prof. Gabby Cornish
20 seats (grad & undergrad)
Department Consent Required

Much of the twentieth century would come to be defined by the Cold War: an ideological struggle between capitalism and communism. Extending well beyond geopolitics, the conflict played a significant role in shaping networks of cultural exchange and musical creation in the twentieth century. In lieu of direct military engagement, the United States and Soviet Union “battled” for supremacy in music and to provide a model for aesthetic achievement around the world. In turn, the clash between the two superpowers would come to shape international relations and musical exchanges around the globe. Topics include the many geopolitical influences the Cold War had on music—and the ways in which music was weaponized to fight the Cold War, the ways the conflict shaped music not only in the Soviet Union and United States, but also in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and the extent to which music can be “political” in its aesthetics, as a means of production, and as an idea. Students will gain experience working with primary sources, evaluating recent scholarly literature, and analyzing a variety of styles of art music, popular music, and jazz.

MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Practices of Listening"

Section 070
Tues/Thurs 9:30-10:45 AM
Prof. Nadia Chana
20 seats (grad & undergrad)
Department Consent Required

There is no such thing as “neutral” listening. Listeners bring their own histories, disciplines, practices, and biases: we do not make sense of what we hear in the same way, and the sense-making is routed through our beliefs, our eyes, and our context. Consider works in (ethno)musicology, sensory studies, sound art, geography, and beyond. Apply our reading to our own listening practices, asking: how does our training—social, music, personal—shape how we listen?  We will approach listening in a variety of ways: we will read broadly, considering works in (ethno)musicology and in closely related (or even overlapping) disciplines like sound studies, soundscape studies, sensory studies, sound art, geography, and beyond. As we read, we will apply our reading to our own listening practices, asking: how does our training—social, music, personal—shape how we listen? And we will practice: we will listen to a variety of musics (mostly non-Western musics), keep track of our listening through (auto)ethnographic writing, transcribe music in a number of creative ways, and create performances based on our own listenings. Ultimately, as we encounter and metabolize a variety of approaches to listening, we will ask ourselves, how does our listening change us and even the world?

MUSIC 511 - Historical Performance Practices

Mon/Wed 2:30-3:45 PM
Prof. Ilana Schroeder
20 seats (grad & undergrad)
Department Consent Required

Examination of historical evidence for performance practice and its relevance to modern performances of the music of earlier eras. This class takes the form of a hybrid lecture-discussion. In it, the docent will alternate between providing information through a pseudo-lecture format, facilitating discussing of course readings and listenings with the class, and group work. Includes weekly short-response assignments, class presentations (grad students only), a final project of preparing pieces in a historically informed style of the baroque period (other than Bach), and performance of select movements of your final project piece in a class concert.

MUSIC 513 - Survey of Opera

Thurs 1:20-3:50 PM
Prof. Margaret Butler
20 seats (grad & undergrad)
Department Consent Required

Historical development of opera; investigation of main stylistic features of representative masterworks. How did opera speak to its past audiences, and what does it say to us today? In this course we will explore a wide range of operatic repertory and topics that will include performance and genre, voice and celebrity, media and communication, theaters and spectacle, and others. Some work involving study of a live performance will be integrated depending on Madison-area productions occurring this semester (TBD). Assignments include discussions, presentations, in-class work, and a research project. Students are encouraged to pursue projects relating to course topics and themes according to their interests.

MUSIC 515 - Proseminar in Ethnomusicology

Tues/Thurs 8:00-9:15 AM
Prof. Nadia Chana
12 seats (grad only)
Department Consent Required

Introduction to ethnomusicology, including historical survey of major works in the field, classification of musical instruments, measurement of tuning systems and concepts of scale, mode and rhythm in non-Western music.

MUSIC 911 - Seminar in Musicology: "Scientific Histories of Music and Sound"

Wed 1:00-3:30 PM
Prof. Gabby Cornish
12 seats (grad only)
Department Consent Required

This doctoral seminar explores the intertwined histories of science, music, and sound from antiquity to the present, with special attention paid to the last two-hundred years. Focusing on how sonic practices, aesthetic theories, and emerging technologies have shaped (and been shaped) by scientific knowledge, we explore sound as an object of inquiry, a methodological tool, and a cultural force. Topics we will cover include timbre, acoustics, tuning practices, performance techniques, organology, recording, telecommunications, and computation. Through close engagement with primary sources, historiography, and disciplinary trends, students will investigate how scientific ideas about sound and music have mediated our relationships with nature, technology, embodiment, and politics. Students will be expected to read 150-200 pages of assigned secondary literature per week to then discuss in detail in seminar. We will also touch on professional development and other relevant topics in academia, with special attention paid to academic publishing strategies and developing a writing practice. The semester will culminate with a substantial original research paper and presentation.

MUSIC THEORY

MUSIC 517 - Proseminar in Music Theory

Friday 9:00-11:30 AM
Prof. Ed Klorman
15 seats (grad only)
Department Consent Required

Consider the meaning of the words "analysis" and "theory," specifically as they have been applied to the study of music. Gain an overview of music theory in higher education: the origin of contemporary analytical praxis, as well as critiques of that model. Take a deeper dive into current trends in analysis, focusing on non-conforming, ecumenical, and otherwise "non-theoretical" ways of talking and writing about music, including narrative, semiotics, hermeneutics, performance-based schemata, and others.

MUSIC 621 - Renaissance Polyphony

Tues/Thurs 9:30-10:45 AM
Prof. Michael Weinstein-Reiman
15 seats (grad & undergrad)
Department Consent Required

This course is an introduction to some of the notational practices and musical conventions of music composed ca. 1400–1600. Major assignments include a counterpoint portfolio and a composition project. This course presumes some musical experience, namely the ability to read C-clefs, primarily alto clef. It also presumes the ability to recognize musical intervals with some speed.

MUSIC 921 - Current Issues in Musical Thought: "Embodiment"

Thurs 3:00-5:30 PM
Prof. Michael Weinstein-Reiman
12 seats (grad only)
Department Consent Required

In what ways do our bodies interact with music and what can this interaction tell us about ourselves? Inspired by this question, this course considers the ways in which music operates on and through the senses, with an emphasis on characterizations of music’s deep connection to the emotions and our sense of self. Through close readings and discussions of texts from across music theory, musicology, cultural studies, the history of science, gender, and sexuality studies, we will unpack the dynamic ways in which composers, performers, teachers, philosophers, and scientists have theorized music as “embodied” to varying degrees.

MUSIC EDUCATION

(3rd Option for DMA Students Only)

MUSIC 945 - Seminar in Music Education: "Human Subjects Research in Music"

Tues 2:25-4:55 PM
Prof. Amy Lewis
10 seats (grad only)
Department Consent Required

Overview of methodological, ethical, and philosophical considerations pertinent for research engaging with human subjects in, through, or around music. Rooted in a commitment toward engaging in ethical and community-conscious scholarship through methodological bricolage. Develop knowledge and skills by identifying research problems, selecting from and/or combining research methodologies, generating data, and analyzing data. Survey of research genres (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and action research paradigms), to develop an expansive understanding of music scholarship. Continue to hone your research-based skills as readers, writers, musicians, and teachers. Explore ethical concerns related to human subjects research, including navigating the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval process.

MUSIC 947 - Current Issues in Music Education

Wed 4:30-7:00 PM
Prof. Jesse Rathgeber
10 seats (grad only)
Department Consent Required

An exploration of current issues facing music education and an examination of future directions for the field. Identify and investigate individual topics.


Keywords:
Graduate, Courses, Musicology, Theory 
Doc ID:
155764
Owned by:
James D. in Mead Witter School of Music
Created:
2025-10-14
Updated:
2026-03-12
Sites:
Mead Witter School of Music