The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, located on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, is “the first school of music to be established in the University of California system.” Established in 2007 under the purview of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture and the UCLA Division of Humanities, the UC Board of Regents formally voted in January 2016 to establish the school.[1] Supported in part by a $30 million endowment from the Herb Alpert Foundation.[1]
Opera singer and Professor of Voice, Eileen L. Strempel was appointed as the school's inaugural dean, effective July 8, 2019. The school is subdivided into the Department of Ethnomusicology, the Department of Music, and the Department of Musicology, and also home to an interdepartmental program in Global Jazz Studies and a minor in Music Industry.
History
With the creation in 1919 of an art gallery and music department, the UCLA leadership committed to offer the study of the arts in a liberal arts research university context. The College of Applied Arts was established in 1939 with the inclusion of an art department. In 1960, the college was renamed the College of Fine Arts, which carried departments of art, dance, music, and theater arts.
In 1988, several big changes occurred in departments throughout the school: Ethnomusicology and Musicology separated from Music, while Design and Art History separated from Art. Art History and Musicology entered the umbrella of the Humanities division of the college while Design and Ethnomusicology remained in Fine Arts.
Then in 1991, the College of Fine Arts was disestablished, giving rise to two separate schools: the School of the Arts and the School of Theater, Film and Television. With the conjoining of architecture to the School of Fine Arts in UCLA's Professional School Restructuring Initiative in 1994, the school was then renamed the School of the Arts and Architecture.
In 2014, a proposal was made for the creation of a School of Music for the college. The new school, called the Herb Alpert School of Music, created in 2016, would join the trio of “independent but complementary arts-centered” schools: the current School of Theater, Film, Television, a redefined School of the Arts and Architecture, and the new School of Music.
In 2020, UCLA announced the Herb Alpert School of Music would establish the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience to support the research, scholarship and performance of American Jewish music.
The name Herb Alpert School of Music was approved by the Board of Regents after the acceptance of a donation of $30 million from the Herb Alpert Foundation in 2007.
In 2023, the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music organized a series of concerts and dialogues focused on race and social justice in the modern world. The series, which took place from February 26–28, 2023, centered around a historic performance of The Gates of Justice, jazz legend Dave Brubeck's rarely presented large-scale sacred composition. For the first time ever, Brubeck's sons performed as the accompanying jazz trio. The program also featured six recent and socially conscious works by contemporary composers, including six-time Grammy-winning pianist, composer, and music educator Arturo O'Farrill. In addition to the concerts, a daylong public conference on February 27 brought together prominent scholars and experts to discuss the historical and cultural connections between Black and Jewish communities in the United States, intimate analyses of Brubeck's Gates of Justice, and the contemporary relevance of music to social justice.
Facilities
The entire school is housed in either the Schoenberg Music Building, established in 1955 and 1965, and the Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center, a pair of buildings completed in 2014.[5]
Schoenberg Music Building
Named in honor of former UCLA faculty member and composer Arnold Schoenberg, this facility houses the Dean's office, administrative offices for the school's departments, most faculty offices, as well as two large theaters. Schoenberg Hall, which seats about 520, is the main auditorium of the Schoenberg building. Lani Hall is a 133-seat house intended mainly for small performance groups and lectures, although it has been used for many other types of events.”