Herb Alpert School of Music: Dean’s Opportunity Fund

Keeping the Music School at the Forefront of Music Education

In January of 2016, the Herb Alpert School of Music was inaugurated as UCLA’s twelfth professional school and the first and only music school in the University of California. Originally established in 2007 with a $30 million endowment from The Herb Alpert Foundation, the school sets a new standard for 21st-century music schools by offering the ultimate in performance, scholarship and innovation all in one place. Over 450 undergraduate and graduate students take advantage of the school’s three highly rated academic departments: Ethnomusicology, the only department of its kind in theIn U.S. and the world’s most celebrated program for the study of diverse musical cultures; Music, which provides intensive individual studio instruction and boasts a faculty full of internationally acclaimed performers and composers; and Musicology, the National Research Council’s top-ranked academic music doctoral program, where students study and conduct research on jazz, heavy metal, techno, musical theater and other forms of popular and European classical music. The school also features the state-of-the-art Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center which includes a high-tech recording studio, mixing rooms, performance spaces, faculty studios, and a café. This new, on-campus facility includes a high-tech recording studio, spaces for rehearsal and teaching and an Internet-based music production studio, all of which offer the latest advances in music technology and research.

The Dean’s Opportunity Fund helps the dean fund key initiatives that keep the school, its students and its faculty moving forward. From student performances, scholarships and symposia to establishing special projects designed to recruit outstanding faculty, this important fund enables the dean to direct funding where it is needed most when it is most needed. This essential fund helps the dean expand the reach and power of the school while pushing the school forward in critical ways each year.