The Institute of Music

Each year, we invite artists of international renown to perform as part of our endowed Green Guest Artist series. Among the incredibly talented guests who have performed at the DePauw University Green Center are Yo-Yo Ma, Rhiannon Giddens, Thomas Hampson, Bobby McFerrin, Postmodern Jukebox, The Kings’s Singers, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Frederica von Stade, to name only a few. These concerts are often preceded by master classes, workshops, and classroom visits to give all of our students a chance to meet and work with some of the best artists in the world.

Past Guest Artists

2023-24
Founders ensemble, trumpeter Sean Jones, and multi-instrumentalist Jerron Paxton.

2022–23: Sweet Honey in the Rock, The American Brass Quintet, Terell Stafford, Sinta Quartet, Wet Ink, Sandeep Das and the HUM Ensemble

2021–22: Rhiannon Giddens, Eighth Blackbird, Attacca Quartet, Baltimore Consort

From fully staged operas and musicals to more intimate revue-style performances, we do it all. Each fall, our beautiful Moore Theatre whirls into action as the collaborative process of presenting a musical begins. This is closely followed by our opera each spring. In the between-time, Thompson Recital Hall hosts the performances by our “Music for the Stage” class as they perform scenes from various operas and musicals.

The Global Music Experience (GME) at DePauw provides programming focused on musical traditions from different cultures. Each year, DePauw students, faculty, and staff delve into the culture and artistry of a different country or area of the world, exploring that region’s music through lectures, experiential learning opportunities, concerts, and other connected events. We host renowned experts to perform music and dance, share their scholarships, and teach a wide range of students about their musical traditions. The GME welcomes all members of the DePauw community, regardless of area of study, and involves collaborators across campus. 

Creative Convocation is a showcase for diverse expressions of creativity from across DePauw University. Launched in 2023, student artists, performers, and makers from all disciplines come together to share their creative work with the entire campus community co-presented by the Institute of Music and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.

Music of the 21st Century is a week-long composer residency immersing the Institute of Music students, faculty and staff in the work of accomplished guest composers through a transformative shared learning experience. During the residency, our community is collectively focused on new music. Virtually all students, staff and faculty are involved in welcoming guest composers and their music into our classes, rehearsals and public events, including two culminating concerts of the guests’ music. This valuable opportunity for students to work directly with distinguished guest composers is generously funded by DePauw alumni Robert and Margaret Schmidt and coordinated by faculty member Eliza Brown.

A choral extravaganza for high school vocalists led by director of choral activities Dr. Bryon Black II.  It is a day for attendees to collaborate and make music with their peers from other schools and participate in master classes and workshops with DePauw voice faculty. 

Register Here

A celebration of all things piano and string through performance classes, creative workshops, demonstrations, ensemble collaborations, and a closing concert and reception. Open to piano and string students, age 12 and older, family members and music teachers.

A day of music with the DePauw University applied music faculty at our beautiful Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts. Attendees will take part in master classes with our world-class instrumental wind and percussion faculty, participate in a large ensemble experience (which will include learning about conducting, large ensemble performance techniques, and repertoire selection), enjoy lunch in our expansive Hoover Dining Hall, tour our beautiful campus, and a have a personal Q & A session with our applied faculty. 

During this annual celebration of jazz music, various high school jazz ensembles perform and receive feedback from guest artists and our own professor of music, Steve Snyder. As the day progresses, master classes are held around campus, leading up to a performance by the DePauw University Jazz Ensemble.

This lunchtime series features live music in downtown Greencastle.  The free 50-minute musical presentations are offered at Music on the Square. Enjoy a catered lunch or bring your own and take a break with the DePauw Institute of Music.

The DePauw University Institute of Music is home to five unique large ensembles: University Orchestra, University Band, Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Singers and Vox Animae. Students enrolled in these ensembles have the opportunity to make music communally with their peers and perform both classic and contemporary works.

Additionally, DePauw hosts various smaller ensembles and chamber groups, and its Symphonic Band, a collective ensemble open to students, faculty and staff from the campus community.  The Putnam County Festival Choir, co-sponsored by the Greencastle Arts Council, is another opportunity for DePauw-Greencastle collaborations as students, faculty, and staff from our campus community and members from the local area come together with a single voice to create truly incredible performance experiences.

Representative Repertoire

DePauw University Orchestra

Pines of Rome — Ottorino Respighi
Symphony No. 7 — Ludwig van Beethoven
Pictures at an Exhibition — Modest Mussorgsky
Voices Shouting Out — Nkeiru Okoye
Hansel and Gretel — Engelbert Humperdinck

DePauw University Band

Aurora Awakes — John Mackey
Symphony No. 6 for Band — Vincent Persichetti
magneticfireflies — Augusta Read Thomas
Hip Hop Etudes — Daniel Bernard Roumain
The Dog Breath Variations — Frank Zappa

DePauw Jazz Ensemble

“African Skies” — Michael Brecker, arr. Riss
“Dear Rudy” — Terell Stafford, arr. Gray
“Blame It on my Youth” — Oscar Levant, arr. Cunliffe
“Hey, It’s Me You’re Talkin’ To” — Victor Lews, arr. Sharpe

Vox Animae

“It Isn’t a Dream” — Melissa Dumphy
“Deer Song” — Craig Hella Johnson
“Not While I’m Around” — Stephen Sondheim

Chamber Singers:

Le Ballet des Ombres — Hector Berlioz
Geistliches Lied — Johannes Brahms
Ballade to the Moon — Daniel Elder
Great God Almighty — Stacey Gibbs
I Need You — Daniel Bernard Roumain
To the Hands — Caroline Shaw