What We Do ~ Mission Statement
The music program is committed to transforming the lives of its students. The music faculty strive to uphold the highest standards of scholarship and performance while placing as their top priority the education of each student. The music program offers a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum immersed in an academic environment rich in liberal learning.  Music students learn to form critical opinions, think, speak, and write clearly, and understand the structure, development, and performance of music from around the globe. And most important, music students learn to embrace the truth that musicianship and scholarship are lifetime pursuits.

Goals of the Music Department

1. To provide a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum accredited and assessed by the National Association of Schools of Music, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and Christopher Newport University.
2. To provide music faculty and guest artists who are recognized experts in their field and who have a passion for learning and teaching.
3. To accept music students who have the demonstrated skills, knowledge, and potential necessary to complete successfully a degree in music.
4. To provide music students with the knowledge, skills, and experiences necessary to become successful teachers, scholars, performers, and composers.
5. To provide serious, high achieving music students with scholarships to support performance, education, creativity, and research.
6. To provide the instruments, equipment, materials, classrooms, rehearsal rooms, and performance halls necessary for the study and performance of music.
7. To provide a wide variety of concerts, recitals, lectures, films, masterclasses, and festivals that educate students and enrich the cultural life of the University and the community.
8. To offer select music courses and performance opportunities to all students of the University and the community.
9. To provide students with additional opportunities for leadership, fellowship, and learning through student music organizations such as Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Sigma Alpha Iota, and MENC.
10. To produce graduates who, upon their graduation, will enter their profession, pursue graduate studies, or maintain their involvement in music.
11. To serve as a significant resource of knowledge, information, strategies, methods, and materials for music students and teachers in the University, the community, and beyond.