- UCSB
- Housing
- Performance Opportunities
- Graduate Information
- Facilities
- Special Collections
- Arts Library
- CREATE
- Links
UCSB
UCSB is ranked
as one of the top
two public research
universities in the nation,
based on per capita
faculty productivity and
scholarship. The campus is
rated by the Carnegie Commission as a Category 1 research university, and is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, the top two percent of universities and colleges in the U.S. and Canada.
UCSB provides an
exciting intellectual environment in a setting of great natural beauty.
It is one of nine universities in the UC system,
a system which, to a certain extent, functions as a large macro-university, providing unparalleled access to library materials, course offerings, and financial support. The campus is located between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean on an 815-acre promontory jutting into the sea. The West Campus, part of which is designated as a natural preserve, contains undeveloped, ecologically important dunes facing the Channel Islands. Downtown Santa
Barbara is 10 minutes away by car, Los Angeles about 90 minutes. Santa Barbara Municipal Airport offers direct air connections on major as well as on commuter
airlines to cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Denver. The campus community currently numbers about 18,000 students, of whom about 2,100 are
graduate students. Another 2,000 graduate students will be added during the next decade. The city of Santa Barbara offers a wide variety of outstanding theatrical and musical productions, art, and natural-history museums, botanical and zoological
gardens, festivals, one of the nation's most dense concentrations of shops and restaurants, and breathtaking views of mountains, Spanish-style architecture,
beaches, palms, and sea.The Santa Barbara area is noted for its striking
natural beauty as well as for its secure and congenial setting. It has a fine
cultural tradition, which includes the Santa Barbara Symphony and Santa
Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Santa Barbara Grand Opera, Santa Barbara Art
Museum, Historical and Natural History Museums, Music Academy of the West,
and highly-rated choral, orchestral and theatrical events series.
Housing
Students attending UCSB have a wide variety of housing to choose from, ranging from University-owned campus residence halls and family student apartments to off-campus privately-owned rooms, apartments, fraternities, sororities, and a housing co-operative. Detailed housing information is available on the housing website at http://www.housing.ucsb.edu. For further information, contact the Office of Housing and Residential Services, 1501 Residential Services Building, De La Guerra Commons, UCSB, Santa Barbara. CA 93106. Phone: (805) 893-2760; fax : (805) 893-4766.
Performance Opportunities
The Department of Music offers a wide range of performance activities. The University Symphony performs regularly on campus in orchestral concerts and with the UCSB Opera Theater in its annual productions. UCSB'S ECM (Ensemble for Contemporary Music) performs on campus and in the community, and each spring hosts an annual New Music Festival, featuring internationally known composers and performers. Orchestral Soloist Auditions offer opportunities to perform as soloist with the University Symphony. The department has several choirs, among which the 32-voice Chamber Choir has toured France and the California missions. The active UCSB Jazz Ensemble performs regularly on and off campus, and has participated in collegiate Jazz Festivals around California. Students participate in the chamber music program and in early music, contemporary and world music ensembles, as well as in numerous other instrumental and vocal groups (see appropriate area listings in the Programs of Study section of this website). In addition, the department seeks to promote a spirit of cooperation among its performance, composition and scholarly components, encouraging students to explore interdisciplinary activities and projects.
The community of Santa Barbara also boasts several fine orchestras: Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra and the Santa Barbara Symphony, as well as numerous choral and theatrical ensembles, in all of which qualified UCSB students have had the opportunity to participate.
Graduate Student Information
UCSB graduate students should consult the on-line Graduate Student Handbook which has complete information about department polices, requirements, funding, Teaching Assistant apprenticeships, campus support groups, and all other matters pertaining to graduate study in music at UCSB.
Facilities
The Music Building is a two-wing, three-story complex of teaching studios, classrooms, practice rooms, Arts Library, Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall, Karl Geiringer Hall and a chamber music hall. Outstanding resources include Hamburg and New York Steinway grand pianos, a state-of-the-art Music Laboratory, and the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE). The Music Library, one of the finest of its kind on the West Coast, houses a music collection containing approximately 34,000 books, 37,000 scores in all formats and 50,000 sound recordings, including 6,000 compact discs.
Special Collections
The Performing Arts Collection in UCSB's Davidson Library has one of the largest collections of historic sound recordings in the country with over 200,000 items including vocal, ethnic, classical, jazz and popular music on disc and cylinder. Manuscript collections include the papers of film composer Bernard Herrmann, singer Lotte Lehmann and autograph manuscripts of other composers including Brahms, Wolf, Milhaud, Castlenuovo-Tedesco and others.
Arts Library
The music collection is located on the second floor of the Arts Library, situated at the western end of the Music Building complex. Its present collection contains over 80,000 books, serials, periodicals, slides, microfilms, videos and musical scores. Approximately 2,000 items are added each year. The record and tape collection is serviced by multi-channel listening positions. In addition to its collection of 19,000 LP recordings and 6,000 compact discs, the library has a highly specialized archival collection of opera recordings on 25,000 78-rpm discs, which are available on a limited basis. Special listening and taping equipment is on hand to provide access to these materials. Two computer databases provide access to this collection: PEGASUS which contains listings of all UCSB library collections, including circulation status of cataloged items as well as citations for titles being ordered; and the MELVYL system, which lists the cataloged collections of all UC libraries and acts as a gateway to many other online databases. Daily deliveries of items requested through interlibrary loan from UCLA and other UC campuses enhance the considerable on-site resources.
For further information contact the Music Librarian, Eunice Schroeder.
CREATE
Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology
The Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology was established in 1986, and is situated within the Department of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin founded CREATE and serves as its director. Dr. Curtis Roads is Associate Director.
CREATE serves as a research and production facility available to students, researchers, and media artists for musical research and the realization of musical and multimedia works. Courses are offered at the undergraduate and graduate levels in collaboration with several departments. The Center also serves as a laboratory for research and development of a new generation of software and hardware tools to aid in media-based composition. The CREATE web site describes in detail the educational, research, and production activities at CREATE.CREATE is committed to maintaining the highest possible level of artistic and technological capability. Professional composers will find the Center a productive place to realize their works. Among those who have made use of our facilities are Iannis Xenakis, Thea Musgrave, and Bebe Barron.
CREATE gives regular concerts featuring appearances by internationally renowned performers and composers such as Horacio Vaggione, Luc Ferrari, Morton Subotnick, Ragnar Grippe, Amy Knoles Earl Howard, Nicola Sani, Jean-Claude Eloy, Gareth Davis, Leon Milo, Adriano Abbado Gerald Errante, Nick Collins, Nicolas Isherwood, Martino Traversa, and Natasha Barrett.
Courses are offered at the undergraduate and graduate levels to composition majors, other students of the Music Department, and visitors from other departments. The courses include an introduction to software sound synthesis, hands-on courses in recording and sound montage using ProTools, synthesizers, and real-time signal processing plugins.
The CREATE center consists of a multimedia production facility with a professional real-time high-resolution digital recording and monitoring studio, next to a multiroom quadrophonic direct digital synthesis studio. The equipment in CREATE includes high-quality microphones and field recorders, analog synthesizers, ProTools high-definition digital audio workstation, and professional outboard effects processors.
For more information, visit the CREATE web site; it describes the center, its staff, and the projects that are currently under-way.