Music

Emerging musicians attend the Governor’s School for advanced instrumental or vocal music study and preparation for careers in music. The comprehensive program includes private lessons and chamber ensembles as well as classes in music theory and music history. As part of the intensive curriculum, students represent the school through performances in the Governor's School Choir and one or more of the following large groups each semester: Cantus Chamber Choir, Concertato String Orchestra, Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra and Wind Ensemble.

Music students are required to take one year of Music Theory and one year of Music History. In each semester, they are also required to take Individual Applied Music which includes lessons, supporting seminars, master classes, and Ensemble Applied Music, which includes large ensem­bles, chamber music and the Governor's School Choir.

The Governor's School has received the distinction of the best AP Music Theory scores in the nation for two years in a row in, for a school this size, according to the College Board.

The Music Department regularly hosts guest artists. Visiting artists from the past few years include pianists Elizabeth Schumann, Meehyun Ahn, Robert Blocker, Donna Lee, Eugene Barban and Marina Lomazov, the vocal group Anonymous 4, soprano Tamara Matthews, and choir director James Jordan. Other instrumentalists include the contemporary group Eighth Blackbird, cellist Zuill Bailey, flutist Nicolas Duchamp, clarinetist David Shifrin, violinists Burton Kaplan and Julie Andrijeski, violists George Taylor and Victoria Chiang, and the American Brass Quintet.

Graduates of the Music Program are continuing their educations at institutions such as the Cleveland Institute of Music, Eastman, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Hartt School of Music, Oberlin, Peabody and New England Conservatories, among others.