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Music Major Kasey Shao Named 2024 Gilmore Young Artist

Sep 18, 2023

The Department of Music congratulates Kasey Shao (Class of 2025), a Music Major who is pursuing Minors in Piano Performance and Engineering Biology, who was one of two students named 2024 Gilmore Young Artists. We caught up with Kasey this summer following the official announcement to discuss how she found out she’d been selected, what she has planned for her 2024 Gilmore recitals and piano commission, and what’s on the docket for her final two years at Princeton.

Get to Know the Music Mentoring Program

Sep 13, 2023

Learn about the Music Mentoring Program and join their welcome event on September 14 from 5:30PM-7:30PM in the Woolworth lobby

Rhythms, Riddles, and Robots

Sep 2, 2023

Learn about Sō Percussion’s concert on September 8th in Richardson auditorium, which inaugurates their tenth year as the Edward T. Cone Performers-in-Residence.

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Music opportunities abound. 

The Music Department provides all Princeton University students—whether they major or gain a certificate in music—with the opportunity to learn from a world-renowned faculty of composers, historians and theorists; and take instrumental or voice lessons in the private studios of eminent professional performers and performance courses in chamber music, opera, vocal ensembles.  


Rehearsal rooms in the Effron Music Building. Photo by Paul Warchol

Steeped in tradition and charting new pathways.

The graduate program invites students to earn a Ph.D. in composition or musicology, advancing their craft and research within the inspiring interdisciplinary, immersive spirit of the Princeton University campus. With an average of 24 students in each area of study at a time, the Music Department’s graduate program allows for fully funded, focused study with a stellar faculty, and within an intimate community that celebrates the intersection between the creation, study, and performance of music.  


Experience community through a campus full of music. Princeton is steeped in performance opportunities from dozens of ensembles — both departmental and student-led — including Symphony orchestras, multi-genre choruses, jazz, contemporary music, African music, steel band, laptop orchestra, and many more! In addition to student performances, world-renowned artists appear on the Princeton University Concerts series; leading performers of contemporary music showcase compositions by faculty and graduate composers through the Princeton Sound Kitchen; Sō Percussion, the Edward T. Cone Artists-in-Residence, perform and engage with the community.


Meet our Faculty

The world-renowned faculty of Princeton’s Department of Music are leaders in composition, musicology, and performance.

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Leila Ruth Abou-Jaoude

“It was only my fourth day of classes at Princeton, yet I spent it sitting behind a Tony award-winning composer as he composed at the piano.”

Leila Ruth Abou-Jaoude ’22