The Dean's Introduction
By David Rosenboom, Dean of the Herb Alpert School of Music

What makes a great school of music in the present age? Here in The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts, we believe such a school is one of ever-open musical possibilities. It is a fertile environment for the evolution of musicmaking as well as for the teaching and learning of music. A great school of music is one that is in tune with the unprecedented stylistic egalitarianism of our time, a school that enables young music artists to recognize their original voices and develop them with skills on the highest level. It is a school that helps students to build a frame around their creative profiles and to give focus to their emerging visions in the context of the vast and varied global cultural landscape of today. A great school of music is one that fosters informed mobility among cultures and deepens the understanding necessary to be effective across a range of collaborative creative situations and settings. It is a school that offers tools to empower young musical innovators in carving out unique and individualized career pathways—including ones that may not have existed before—in our unpredictable and rapidly changing professional milieu. A great school of music is one that adapts flexibly to emerging forms of distribution and information sharing and to changes in what may be considered fundamental for music learning. It is a school that nurtures the tenacity new artistic visions may demand, the will to challenge society’s definitions and presumptions when necessary, and the perseverance required for young artists to manifest the profound gifts they may offer to their evolving cultures. A great school of music is one that embraces an evolving world for its rich possibilities, its new opportunities.

The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts offers a dynamic learning environment optimized for informed, creative musicmakers. Students are fully immersed at the front lines of their chosen fields, where they can recognize clearly what they need to learn—and why—in order to become effective contributors to those fields. Creative music today can draw inspiration from any and all fields of earlier musical development. This open cross-pollination of influences has given rise to a dense, lush macrocosm of original sound: a fertile terrain in which to create and re-create anew.

Our school is especially attuned to the fact that young practitioners, regardless of their individual stylistic trajectories, must now master a wide range of musical literature and theories, both traditional and new, and a very broad range of practical skills. Most importantly, they must become resourceful and self-reliant practitioners—fast learners who are able to survive on the cutting edge while surfing trends with critical acuity and working within a spectrum of speculative ideas. Now more than ever, young artists must aim for the highest levels of versatility in order to lay the groundwork for future success: They need the ability to move among musical cultures and styles and, increasingly, instruments and media; to work in a variety of interdisciplinary situations; and to develop advanced writing, speaking, playing, teaching, technological and creative skills. Our programs are designed expressly for such artists, helping them to cultivate a far-ranging musical acumen while at the same time providing specialized training best suited for meeting each student’s specific goals. Moreover, our programs focus on the development of intellectual and critical abilities so that each artist can best contextualize his or her distinctive work within broader aesthetic and cultural settings—and effectively project that work out into the world.

Our community of musicmakers represents the highest standards in musical knowledge, skill, creativity, resourcefulness, strong individual initiative, and tenacity. These qualities also spell out the formula for the success of our students: the composers, performers and producers who will shape the global musical landscape of tomorrow.