Make your music matter

Study what’s important to you

There’s no one way to be a musician. At Longy, you’ll uncover and explore new ways to make a living in music. Our innovative

Catalyst Curriculum

for graduate studies is customized to focus on the skills, knowledge and experience you’ll need to create change in the world. You choose the training you need for the career paths you want to explore.

With fewer core requirements overall—just 10 of the 36 credits you’ll need to graduate—you’ll have plenty of time for open credits that will let you explore what really interests you.

To learn more about our Catalyst Curriculum, check out this video.

At Longy, we empower students to design experiences, produce projects, and engage audiences with exceptional, transformative music encounters. You’ll learn … How to make your music matter: Starting with our Artist Statement Workshops and Career Coaching Program, we will help you articulate a vision for your career. Then we’ll help you identify the skills, training, and classes you’ll need to reach your goals. How to create: In our Custom Commission Program, you’ll collaborate in a laboratory setting, where performers join forces with composers to create custom pieces. How to curate: As you program your First Year and Graduate Recitals, you’ll develop programs that display your unique artistic perspective, share meaningful repertoire, and explore the pathways in which you communicate with the audience.

How to engage: In Teaching Artistry, you’ll develop the skills to engage audiences in any setting—essential skills for bringing music to new audiences everywhere. How to make your own work: In Musician’s Portfolio, you’ll build your website and gather the headshot, résumé, video, and audio samples you’ll need to find work. You’ll also learn to design experiences, produce projects and find opportunities for creating your own work. Choose one or more of these options to focus on what you need to learn to get where you want to go. Advanced Teaching Artistry: Apply the audience engagement skills of Teaching Artistry to events and programs at Longy and beyond, working independently or in small groups. Music as a Healing Art: Learn how your music can bring healing to healthcare settings. >Watch the Video Sistema Side-by-Side: Experience the power of El Sistema in Longy’s music for social change program, as you mentor and perform alongside young musicians.

>Watch the Video

Music and Civic Engagement: Identify social needs that can be addressed through music.

Building projects from the ground up is an essential skill. Choose one of the following options: Entrepreneurship: Learn practical skills to get any project—or organization—off the ground.

One of many Project-Based classes:

Get hands-on experience designing and producing projects and building audiences. >Watch the Video

Start your career now

From your first days at Longy you are a Boston musician, performing professionally with our faculty and artistic partners around the city. Get hands-on, real-world experience while you build your network with an extensive community of musicians and organizations. Boston isn’t merely a backdrop—it’s the stage for your artistic pursuits and an integral part of the Longy experience. Be immersed in a vibrant, artistic city with hundreds of new ensembles, opera companies, theaters, orchestras, dance troupes and museums for you to enjoy.

Watch: Start Your Career Now

We create extraordinary performing, teaching, and career opportunities for our students through our partnerships—over 40 artistic and educational partners, artists- and ensemblesin-residence, and Music as a Healing Art partners. Our artistic collaborators include:

• A Far Cry • Boston Camerata • Boston Early Music Festival • Castle of Our Skins • Celebrity Series of Boston • Du Bois Orchestra • Horszowski Trio • Imagine Orchestra • MassOpera • Musicians from Marlboro • New England Jazz Collaborative • New Gallery Concert Series • Palaver Strings • Radius Ensemble

Artist Activist-in-Residence

Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator, and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (New York Times), DBR has worked with artists from Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones to Lady Gaga; appeared on NPR, American Idol, and ESPN; and has collaborated with the Sydney Opera House and the City of Burlington, Vermont. Acclaimed as a violinist and activist, DBR’s career spans more than two decades, earning commissions by venerable artists and institutions worldwide.

Senior Scholar-in-Residence

Award-winning composer, conductor, and author William C. Banfield is one of the most performed and recorded composers of his generation, and his national music curriculum is taught throughout the country. He has written extensively about Black musicians and composers, and has actively elevated important musical voices through his contemporary jazz art recording label and orchestra, JazzUrbane. At Longy, he will provide professional development for faculty and staff, teach signature courses for students, and conduct the Imagine Orchestra.