Academics

The BFA in Jazz and Contemporary Music is a uniquely challenging and flexible program that includes intensive courses in technical, conceptual, aesthetic, and historical aspects of jazz and contemporary music. Choosing either the Instrumental or the Vocal concentration, you learn to collaborate, compose, and improvise as you prepare for a wide variety of careers in music.

The College of Performing Arts also offers master's degrees that draw on the strengths of all three schools — Mannes, Jazz, and Drama — to serve students whose work defies traditional boundaries and transforms society.

BFA Program

Cross-College Graduate Programs

Minors

With our wide range of minors, students can explore interests beyond their core area of study across all of The New School's schools and colleges. They can acquire new professional skills, develop an interdisciplinary outlook, and gain a competitive edge on job and graduate school applications.

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BA/BFA Program

Students in this five-year program simultaneously complete two degrees: the professional BFA and the liberal arts BA.

Undergraduate students at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music can pursue a five-year integrated bachelor’s-master’s dual degree, combining their BFA degree with the MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. The master’s program enables you to deepen your abilities as a performer while gaining knowledge and skills in business, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

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ESL + Music

The ESL + Music program helps students develop their English language skills before they begin their degree at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Students study music with members of the faculty while improving their English language skills in order to qualify for degree programs.

Performance & Learning Opportunities

Find opportunities inside and outside the classroom to pursue what makes you a distinct musician. Expand your talents. Improvise. Create from scratch. Reach across disciplines. Perform and find yourself as an artist.

Make Your Ensemble

Explore new facets of your artistry. With ensembles recast each semester, one semester you'll be playing in the Electric Miles Davis directed by a musician like Adam Holzman, who played with Miles in the 1980s. The next, you'll play in Studio Orchestra, collaborating with Mannes performers in our largest ensemble, directed by a legendary musician like Ingrid and Christine Jensen. In addition to our eighty ensembles, you can create your own-choose the type of music you want to make, the musicians you want to play with, and the directors you want as your mentors.

Begin Your Career in New York City

Don't just live in one of the most thriving music scenes in the world-play in it. With partnerships around the city, you can easily take part in jam sessions at some of the greatest jazz clubs in NYC, like Smalls and Zinc Bar, or find yourself onstage at cultural hotspots like The Morgan Library and the Highline. Play in venues across the city as all of New York becomes your stage, bandstand, studio, and cultural playground.

The World Is Your Stage

Travel the world as an artist. Our international partnerships will develop you into the kind of musician you want to be. Play gigs at the Bern International Jazz Festival in Switzerland as one of six selected quartets, or represent the school with your performing talents at conferences and festivals around the globe. Share your unique voice with the world as we add new partnership opportunities every year.

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