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Since its establishment in 1923, the Department of Music at New York University has held a central position in American music scholarship and creativity. NYU faculty member Gustave Reese was one of the founding members of The American Musicological Society in 1934, and by mid-century the department had attracted a world-renowned group of scholars and musicians, from the pioneering musicologist Curt Sachs to composers of both concert and popular music such as Marion Bauer and Percy Grainger. Building on this legacy, the Department established its ethnomusicology sub-field in 1978, and a composition and theory sub-field in 1992. It has since grown into one of the country’s most exciting, intellectually vibrant centers for the interdisciplinary study of music and sound. The NYU Department of Music offers studies in historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and composition and theory at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. With its leading research faculty, the Department grants degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. The Department also sponsors a colloquium series, musical ensembles, graduate and undergraduate concerts, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society concert series, and a range of interdisciplinary symposia/conferences. Our facilities include early and world music instrument collections, two cutting-edge technology labs that provide digital resources for composition and research, and the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media. Read more.

Robert Bailey (1937-2012)

It is with the utmost sadness that the Department of Music at New York University announces the passing of Robert Bailey, Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music Emeritus at New York University. Professor Bailey was an extraordinary figure, a legend in Wagner studies, a noted teacher at Eastman, NYU and Juilliard, and a remarkable personality. He will be deeply missed by all of us. Professor Rena Mueller provides both a short biographical sketch and a personal reminiscence below, which gives us a strong sense of what we have lost.

Professor Michael Beckerman
Carroll and Milton Petrie Chair of Music
New York University

At Princeton Robert Bailey was destined originally for Byzantine Music Studies...more