University of North Texas College of Music

The University of North Texas College of Music, based in Denton, is a comprehensive music school among the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. It developed the first jazz studies program in the nation, and it remains one of the top schools for jazz. As one of thirteen colleges and schools at the University of North Texas, it has been among the largest music institutions of higher learning in North America since the 1940s. North Texas has been a member of the National Association of Schools of Music for 85 years. Since the 1970s, approximately one-third of all North Texas music students have been enrolled at the graduate level. Music at North Texas dates back to the founding of the university in 1890 when Eliza Jane McKissack, its founding director, structured it as a conservatory.

Overview
The College of Music is a comprehensive institution of international rank. Its heritage dates back years, when North Texas was founded. The college has one of the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, of which it has been a member for 85 years. It has been among the largest music institutions of higher learning in North America since the 1940s. The college awards Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, Doctor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees and non-degree graduate artist certificates. Concentrations include performance, music composition, music education, music history, music theory, ethnomusicology, and jazz studies. Its size, its array of disciplines organized across eight academic divisions, its six research centers, its six major ensemble areas that produce over 70 ensembles, and the number of degrees offered — from bachelor's degrees to doctorates to artist certificates — allows the college the achieve the type of critical mass to be highly comprehensive (wide and deep) and prolific in academics, research, and performance, from big to small to standard to experimental to esoteric.

In performance, the public review of the college's total work is presented through over 1,000 student and faculty concerts, annually, which include fully mounted opera, grand chorus, symphonic orchestra, early music, chamber music, jazz, orchestra, winds, experimental music, intermedia, and ethno music. The music library, founded in 1941, has one of the largest music collections in the United States, with over 300,000 volumes of books, periodicals, scores, and approximately 900,000 sound recordings. Since the 1970s, approximately one-third of all North Texas music students have been enrolled at the graduate level. North Texas was first in the world to offer a degree in jazz studies. U.S. News & World Report, in its annual America's Best Graduate Schools, ranked the jazz studies program as the best in the country every year from 1994, when it began ranking graduate jazz programs, to 1997, when it retired the category. The One O'Clock Lab Band has been nominated for 7 Grammy Awards.

Degrees, divisions, and centers
The College of Music offers 19 programs leading to degrees and 1 leading to an artist certificate:

Selected history

 * 1890 — when the University of North Texas was founded – music was a part of the curriculum. What then was a teachers college offered a "Conservatory Music Course" as part of the initial "Nine Full Courses." The complete course in music, lasting forty-four weeks, required private lessons that had to be paid for, in addition to regular school tuition. Tuition for these classes was $200 for the complete course, while regular tuition for a forty-week school year was only $48.  The founding president, Joshua Crittenden Chilton (1853–1896), taught the first classes in the history of music and the theory of sound. John M. Moore, a Dallas Methodist bishop and teacher of mathematics and engineering courses, taught the classes in voice culture and harmony. Mrs. Eliza Jane McKissack was also a teacher of music and may have served as the director of the music conservatory.
 * 1939 — North Texas became an associate member of the National Association of Schools of Music
 * 1940 — North Texas became a full member of the National Association of Schools of Music
 * 1941 — The National Association of Schools of Music approved graduate studies in music at North Texas
 * 1950 — The School of Music began offering its first degrees leading to a Doctor of Philosophy in the areas of musicology, composition, and theory.
 * 1960 — The oldest existing part of the current Music Building opens, along with Voertman Concert Hall.
 * 1968 — The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved degrees leading to a Doctor of Musical Arts
 * 1975 — Most of the current Music building opens.
 * 1989 — The School of Music restructured itself as a "college of music," reflecting nearly 60 years of size and breadth of many disciplines in the music arts. The school leadership had long contemplated restructuring as a conservatory, but felt that a well-functioning college model, tailored specifically for North Texas, gave the entire university latitude to exploit the best of several models that included academic research, performance, composition, training music educators and music school administrators, and other areas – and it preserved a streamline of cross-discipline of all areas within the College of Music and within the University.  The College of Music has enjoyed close collaboration with other Colleges within the University (e.g., English faculty and students collaborating with composers, physics faculty and students collaborating with several divisions in areas that included musical acoustics, electronic music).  Despite the high caliber of student musicianship and seriousness of all the programs, the College of Music is accessible in many areas to non-music majors.