School of Music adds 3 new majors
Brigitte Ortiz | THE RIDER
The UTRGV School of Music is offering music composition, music technology and mariachi majors this semester.
Kurt Martinez, director of the School of Music, said he and his faculty were thinking of what degree to offer to attract more students.
“’Cause a lot of times, students, they want to study, like, this major, composition. They want to learn how to write and we didn’t have anything like that,” Martinez said. “So, a lot of times people would overlook UTRGV and they would go to another school.”
He said the mariachi major is a unique degree because UTRGV is the only school in the U.S. that offers this degree.
“When they get out of this degree, they’re certified to teach at a public school,” Martinez said. “Mariachi is really getting big in public schools so that’s one of the … reasons that we thought it was [important] to incorporate this degree and because we also have a strong tradition of mariachis in this area.”
The music technology degree will provide students the opportunity to learn methods for integrating music technology into the practices of composition, research, performance and/or pedagogy, according to an Instagram post by the UTRGV School of Music.
“A lot of times you get a student that wants to study music but they really don’t have the traditional background of studying,” Martinez said. “So, what they’ve done is just made music via the computer. So, how can we serve those students? So, that’s why we decided to open up that degree.”
Justin Writer, a composition and theory associate professor, said in the past, they have been able to offer composition lessons.
“We’ve had students who wanted to get composition degrees but we did not have the major in place, [so] we weren’t able to offer it,” Writer said. “Now that we are, we are expecting it will be pretty popular and we’ll start getting majors all throughout the valley wanting to pursue composition as their degree plan.”
He said there are different careers that are possible with this major. The most common path is going to graduate school and teach at a college or university.
“The other path is you could end up teaching private lessons or doing all types of multiple musical jobs where a composition degree will be helpful,” Writer said. “Sometimes that may be working making jingles, sometimes that might mean working at a media of some kind.”
Roberto Perez, a music education junior, said this is a great major.
“We have so many students that maybe classroom teaching [or] being a performance major may not be their forte but they do enjoy writing music,” Perez said. “So this new major, composition major, is definitely something that those types of people can sink their teeth into and make a name for themselves in that form and fashion.”
To apply to this major or any major in the School of Music, visit the UTRGV website, click on the major and set up an audition.
