student playing cello

Music

Major (BA)
Minor

A community of master musicians with a global reputation for developing revolutionary sounds and ideas. A collaborative, experimental spirit. State-of-the-art facilities. At Mills, you’ll find the support you need to unleash your creativity.

About the Music Program

Here, you’ll work one-on-one with faculty who have active careers as composers, performers, and researchers—and who are dedicated to fostering every student’s unique talents. In small classes, you’ll study music of diverse styles and traditions—from early music to electronic sound art, opera to African drumming—examining its global, historical, and cultural contexts. Your professors will help you chart an individualized course of study, choosing from coursework that explores performance and improvisation, cultural studies, composition, and sound technology. They’ll encourage you to explore interdisciplinary interests through coursework in other departments. If you major in music, your program will culminate with a festival of works by graduating Mills musicians. View our music program details for in-depth information on the major and minor.

You’ll also enjoy opportunities to collaborate with other students and with world-renowned composers and performers in the studio and on stage, gaining exposure to the highest levels of professional excellence. The Music Department is especially committed to empowering women for roles in music technology, recording engineering, and composition. All students have 24/7 access to the department’s Center for Contemporary Music, an internationally recognized facility for electronic and computer music that has influenced innovation in contemporary music for more than 50 years.

Courses You Could Take

Music and Migration
Women, Gender & Musical Creativity
African American Music
Sound Techniques of Recording
Introduction to Electronic Music
Music Instrument Building

Beyond the Classroom

Learning isn’t limited to the classroom at Mills. Take a look at some of the opportunities you can have while studying music.

Performances & Collaborations
  • X-Sound Festival—Graduating Mills music majors present their original compositions and sound art during this annual spring concert.
  • Thursday Night Special—This biweekly, student-run, cross-disciplinary performance event fosters experimentation, creative collaboration, and community among undergraduate and graduate students.
  • Campus Ensembles—Renowned Mills faculty lead groups of students in practicing and performing early music, chamber music, contemporary music, improvisation, jazz vocals, percussion pieces, African drumming, and gamelan.
  • Composers-in-Residence—Each year, guest artists are invited to campus to involve students in performing concerts of their work, building instruments and installations, and more.
  • Off-Campus Concerts—Discover the San Francisco Bay Area’s myriad venues for new music, including the Luggage Store Gallery, Meridian Gallery, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley Arts Festival, and Garden of Memory Walk. Mills students, alumnae and faculty frequently perform in these venues.  
Mills College X-Sound Music Festival
students at microphones
Concert Series & Sound Art
  • Mills Music Now—This fall-through-spring concert series in Littlefield Concert Hall features contemporary composers and performers from around the world as well as Mills’ own faculty and campus ensembles.
  • Songlines—The Music Department brings composers, musicologists, instrumentalists, and others to campus for this series of experimental music talks and informal performances.
  • Signal Flow—Representing the cutting edge of contemporary music practices, graduating MA and MFA music students present their culminating work at this annual four-day event.
Access to Unique Facilities & Equipment

As a Mills music student, you have round-the-clock access to a wealth of facilities and unique equipment, including:

  • The 450-seat Littlefield Concert Hall in our historic Music Building
  • Individual practice rooms
  • Greek Theatre

The Music Building also contains the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM), which encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, hands-on engineering, and aesthetic risk. Among other resources, it offers:

  • Instrument-building workshop to create your own circuits and synthesizers
  • Studios for recording, editing, rehearsing, and experimenting with computer and electronic music
  • High-quality mics, an analog mixing console, tape and digital recorders, Mac Pro systems with programming and editing software, and other sophisticated equipment
  • An array of new and historic synthesizers, including the pioneering Buchla 100 built in 1963
What Can I Do with a Music Degree from Mills?

Graduates of our Music Program include distinguished composer Elinor Armer, Latin jazz band leader Rebeca Mauleón, film composer Willow Williamson, video/sound artist Betsey Biggs, and guitarist Ava Mendoza. In addition to working as independent composers, performers, and artists, our alumnae pursue careers in business, education, law, media, technology, and the music industry. Recent graduates have used skills gained at Mills in critical analysis, creative thinking, collaboration, and communication to succeed in such positions as:

Vice President, Commercial Credit
East River Bank
Musical Director and Singer
Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble
Public Information Officer
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Operations Analyst
O’Reilly Media
Web Marketing Manager
SunPower
Wealth Associate
Trilogy Financial Services
Attorney Advisor
US Copyright Office
Violinist
International Contemporary Ensemble
Artistic Director
Marin Girls Chorus
Content Specialist
Nuance Communication
Program Director
Seattle Music Partners
Assistant Professor of Music
Tufts University
Assistant Professor of Music
University of New Haven