Expand Your Creative Potential.
The Mills College Music Department has enjoyed an international reputation in the field of contemporary music since the 1930s, occupying a unique place in Bay Area culture. Aesthetically open-minded, technologically advanced, and artistically active, the department is an ideal environment for your creative exploration and growth.
We offer the following two-year graduate degree programs:
MFA in Electronic Music & Recording Media
MFA in Music Performance & Literature with specializations in solo and chamber music or in improvisation
MA in Composition
Our programs in composition and electronic music keep Mills at the forefront of new music. Directed by a core of distinguished composers and sound artists, including John Bischoff, Chris Brown, James Fei, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, Maggi Payne, and Les Stuck, these programs welcome visiting artists to their teaching rosters, including Joëlle Léandre in 2006, Hilda Paredes in 2007, and Zeena Parkins each spring semester since 2011.
Scholarship is an important component of all our graduate programs, and a lively intellectual atmosphere is maintained through seminars and one-on-one studies in musicology, theory, and ethnomusicology with renowned scholars David Bernstein and Nalini Ghuman.
Our commitment to creating interdisciplinary works with other fine arts departments is enhanced by Mills' Art and Technology Program, which generates fresh ways of making and thinking about music and sound art. You’ll be encouraged to explore resources and opportunities for collaboration with the College’s outstanding programs of dance, art, computer science, book art, and creative writing.