With four world-class music schools and over 16 colleges and universities with music programs, Boston is a great place to study music. There is a broad choice of schools, including traditional conservatories and schools specializing in jazz, contemporary music, and musical theater.
These are the most popular music majors in Boston:
- Music, or general music, is a broad-based music education that may include the study of music performance, theory, history, and pedagogy. This major is often a starting point for a graduate degree.
- Music Performance: Broad music education with an emphasis on musical performance. Prepares you for a career as a soloist, ensemble player, or accompanist.
- Musical Theater: This program prepares you for a professional theater career with intensive training in singing and dancing.
- Music Education: This prepares you for a career as a music teacher in primary, elementary, and secondary schools.
- Music Theory and Composition: Focuses on the skills needed to create and arrange music and may include musical theory, harmony, rhythm, improvisation, and computer skills.
- Music therapy prepares you for a career as a therapy professional using music. Classes may include music, psychology, biology, therapy, and general studies.
- Conducting prepares you for a career as a conductor or leader of a band, orchestra, or choir. Classes may include score analysis, arranging, rehearsal,rehearsal and performance leadership. music coaching, arrangement and performance planning, and ensemble operations management.
- Musicology focuses on the history and cultural context of musical expression in the broadest sense.
- World Music or Ethnomusicology: Study of musical expression throughout the world with performance or research emphasis
- Music management prepares you to manage the careers of musicians as well as leadership positions in music labels and organizations.
Music Schools in Boston
The following schools are dedicated to music only. The colleges are listed by number of students attending not rank. Make sure to check out other great colleges in the Boston area with our matching tools.
| School | Tuition | Selectivity | Size | Location | Music Degrees |
| Berklee College of Music |  |
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    Popular: Music Composition, Music Performance, Jazz, Music General, Music Management, Music Therapy |
| New England Conservatory | |
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  Popular: Stringed Instruments, Keyboard, Voice and Opera, Jazz, Brass Instruments, Percussuin Instruments, Woodwind Instruments, Theory and Composition, |
| Boston Conservatory | |
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Popular: Music, Musical Theatre |
| Longy School of Music of Bard College |  |
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Popular: Brass, Keyboard, Stringed Instruments, Voice and Opera, Music Performance, Woodwind Instruments, Theory and Composition, Music Pedagogy, Performance, Conducting |
Colleges in Boston with Music Programs
The table below shows a selection of colleges in universities in the Boston that offer music majors. The colleges are listed by number of students attending not rank. Make sure to check out other great colleges in the Boston area with our matching tools.
| School | Tuition | Selectivity | Size | Location | Music Degrees |
| Boston Unversity | |
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| Harvard University | |
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| Northeastern University | |
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| University of Massachusetts |  |
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| Boston College | |
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| MIT | |
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| Bridgewater State University | |
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| Tufts University | |
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| Salem State University | |
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| Brandeis University | |
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Popular: Music General, Music Theory and Composition |
| Lesley University | |
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Popular: Music Therapy |
| Simmons College | |
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Popular: Music General |
| Emerson College | |
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Popular: Music Theatre, Music Performance |
| Gordon College | |
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Popular: Music General, Music Performance |
| Amherst College | |
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Popular: Music General |
| Eastern Nazarene College | |
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Popular: Music Performance |
