About Music and Culture at UTSC

About the Music and Culture program at UTSC

Official information about the requirements for being a Music and Culture major or minor can be found on the ACM program page and the UTSC Registrar's page.

For those unfamiliar with UTSC, you should know that almost all degrees granted are Honours Bachelor of Arts or Honours Bachelor of Science. In other words, most students at UTSC typically pursue one of two paths: a major plus two minors, or a double major.

We also have a new Joint Specialist program with Centennial College in Music, Industry and Technology. More information can be found here.

  • Our Vision

    We strive to serve the diverse needs and interests of the UTSC community while providing artistic, cultural, academic, and civic leadership to the GTA and beyond. By combining their studies with other arts and non-arts disciplines, Music and Culture students at UTSC help to create, join, and enliven musical and artistic communities, with a focus on creative music-making, intellectual development, community engagement and participation, health and wellness, and arts entrepreneurship.

  • Our Values

    • Flexible musicianship aimed at personal and collective well-being

    • Creative, participatory, and inclusive music-making

    • Fostering healthy communities through community music-making

    • Critical and intellectual engagement with music and/as culture

    • Combining music with other interests: i.e., “Music and”; “Music in conversation”

What you probably want to know about the Music and Culture program

 

After years of music experience in their secondary school programs or through their own passion of making music with friends, family, and communities, many students find themselves wanting to continue their involvement with music. However, because of an assortment of pressures to study another discipline, they are at a loss for how to maintain their interests alongside study and work obligations. One of our favourite sayings is "Music and..." Arguably the greatest strength of the Music and Culture program at UTSC is that it allows students to combine and marry their interests. We tried to do an analysis on the various combination of majors and minors amongst those involved with Music and Culture. But it turned out that there really aren't any solid patterns. Students combine music with Biology, English, Mental Health Studies, Computer Science, Arts Management, etc, etc. It's very exciting.

"Music and..." is also about finding ways to keep music in your life. There are so many ways to engage with music making regardless of one's career path. It is about recognizing work-life balance by actively seeking out music making opportunities that help support individual and collective well-being, drawing on music's well-known health and wellness benefits. Note that ours is a Music and Culture program. This is important to us. We don't just make music. We think about it, we discuss it, we write about it, and so on. In short, we try to embrace what a university degree should ideally represent: the thoughtful engagement with our world.

But we know that making music is what most people love to do. That's why we're all here, right? We try to find a place for everyone who wants to make music. Seriously. If you sing, play, or create music in any way, we have a place for you (and if we don't, we'll try to create one!). We don't have entrance auditions and we don't expect students to have passed RCM exams. We welcome acoustic and digital music making and different genres of music making. In our Small Ensembles course, for example, all contemporary styles are welcome! That said, we don't have the infrastructure to teach orchestra and band instruments from scratch. We don't offer private lessons, for example. All of our courses and ensembles are group-based.

Where are We?

The main rehearsal space and the four practice rooms for the Music and Culture program are housed on the third floor of the AA building. Just take the elevator and there we are. All UTSC students have access to the practice rooms. Speak with someone in the ACM office on the third floor to book times.

 
 

Visit Us

University of Toronto Scarborough

Arts and Administration Building

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1265 Military Trail

Toronto, ON M1C 1A4

Room AA301