“For the majority of MIT students, the Institute’s combination of a world-class science, engineering, and humanities education with superb music training is one key to their creativity, success, and well-being.”
MIT leaders have long recognized the arts as a fundamental component of an MIT education. In a typical year, more than 1,500 students are enrolled in MIT music classes, consistently making Music and Theater Arts one of the top-five highest enrolled courses for undergraduates, and music is among the most popular of the Institute’s 42 minors. More than 500 musicians participate in one of 30 ensembles, chamber groups, or advanced music programs on campus in any given semester.
The primary goal of the music program at MIT is to foster a lifelong passion for music making. Students enter the program either as high-achieving musicians and they receive a conservatory-level education or they arrive as beginners and engage in an in-depth introduction to music. The program also serves as a platform for investigating music technology in a way that no other school can. MIT’s technological edge prepares our students not only to use technology to make music—as at other schools—but to create new technology to make music in new ways.
Now, MIT has made a historic commitment to expanding and enhancing music education with a new, dedicated music building. Its future location at the heart of campus reflects the core place that music studies and performance hold in the lives and well-being of MIT students. Importantly, the building will be a unified home for MIT’s dynamic musical community, from conservatory-level musicians to those discovering the power of the arts.
The building will transform music education and appreciation with versatile performance venues, optimized rehearsal facilities, and enhanced music technology spaces.
The primary goals for the building have led to the design of three distinct components, all connected by a lobby, adding a total of 35 thousand square feet of dedicated music space to campus.
Explore renderings of the new music building’s exterior, lobby, and performance lab and see detailed floor plans.
→ Arts benefactor makes lead gift for new MIT music building
→ Meet the Makers: Juan Carlos Garcia ’20
→ Meet the Makers: Russel Pasetes ’20
→ The participatory music experience Comusica takes center stage at the virtual MIT Commencement on May 29, 2020
→ More than 800 MIT graduates will sing one song together, virtually (Boston Globe)