Student Ensembles

Gary Hill , Director of Ensemble Studies

At the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts School of Music, we are reinventing the collegiate ensemble experience! The School of Music's innovative, projects-based ensemble program gives music students the opportunity to participate in exceptional ensembles that are engaged in richly diverse artistic/educational experiences. The ensemble program centers on music ranging from significant canonic works, to contemporary compositions and improvisatory encounters.

Rather than participating in traditional, fixed ensembles, our students now enroll in ensembles comprising fluid instrumental or vocal personnel pools, mirroring the professional world. Prior to the beginning of the academic year, each ensemble pool provides students and their advisors with a menu of artistic and educational projects from which to build individualized plans of study. Using student choices, mentor advice, and audition results as a guide, ensembles faculty then assign each student to approximately four different projects each semester.

The typical array of projects found within each curricular menu employ groups that vary in size from small chamber music consorts of all kinds to large, “heritage ensembles.” Through a series of short-term projects, each student studies and performs music encompassing an extraordinary range of styles; moreover, projects often include world-class guest artists and unique, trans-disciplinary collaborations. This atypical curriculum demands that all students become more artistically diverse, while also advancing their musical depth, through intensive and regular short-term immersion in the study of masterpieces.

Through a varied and expansive performance agenda, the results of student efforts are heard in an array of venues throughout our community and beyond, from schools, retirement centers, hospitals, and parks to galleries, concert halls, recordings and media broadcasts. The Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts School of Music ensembles program gives students access to artistic/educational ventures of all kinds; develops an uncommon level of excellence in student musicianship; and maximizes ASU’s artistic impact on its community and its influence within the music profession.