Performance at Harvard

Faculty-Led Ensembles

Participation in faculty-led ensembles is eligible for Harvard College credit. See Performance Courses, below.

The Harvard Choruses

• Harvard Glee Club
• Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum
• Radcliffe Choral Society

Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra

Harvard Jazz Orchestra

“During the summers I’ve gone to music festivals where there are students—undergrads, grads—from the best conservatories like Curtis, Juilliard, NEC. The really serious musicians at Harvard are just as good as those people.”

Stefan Jackiw (concert violinist)

Student Performance Ensembles

Much of music performance on campus is considered extracurricular at Harvard, and groups are open to all students, regardless of concentration. Musical groups are often student-governed, and most handle their own auditions, operations, touring, and funding.

Bands

Harvard University Band

Harvard Wind Ensemble

Composers

Harvard Group for New Music (graduate composers)

Harvard Composers Association (undergraduate composers)

Choirs

Kuumba Singers

GSAS Student Center Choir

Harvard University Choir

A Cappella

Harvard Din and Tonics

Harvard KeyChange

Harvard Krocodiloes

Harvard Low Keys

Harvard-Radcliffe Callbacks

Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones

Mizmor Shir

Noteables

Opportunes 

Radcliffe Pitches

Vox Jazz

“Harvard offered [me] the ability to make music somewhere that wasn’t a pressure-cooker. Everyone at Harvard was doing their own thing, and these beautiful and natural collaborations came out of that.”

Gabe Fox Peck ’19. Read the story of how Fox-Peck and fellow Harvard grad Joshuah Campbell developed their Academy Award-nominated “Stand Up” (2019 nomination for best song, Harriet)

Theatrical/Opera

Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players

Harvard College Opera

Hasty Pudding Theatrical

Lowell House Opera

Harvard Department of Theatre, Dance and Media

Orchestras

Bach Society Orchestra

GSAS Student Center Orchestra

Harvard Pops Orchestra

Mozart Society Orchestra

“… if you say you went to Harvard, in the musical world, the automatic reaction is ‘How good can you really be? Is this a side thing for you while you prepare to work on Wall Street?’ But in a much deeper and truer sense the responsibility that you have to take as an artist at Harvard is the kind you have to take as an artist in the world because you are in a community of really talented, really intelligent people who are simultaneously all figuring out what the heck they want to do together, and that is tremendously exciting. And it’s a bit of a safe haven, of course, but it’s a far truer model, I think, of what being an artist in the world is like.”

Matt Aucoin ‘ 12 [excerpted from Harvard Gazette, “A Year Set to Music”]

Chamber Music & Ensembles

Brattle Street Chamber Players

Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra

River Charles Ensemble

Early Music

Harvard Early Music Society (HEMS)

Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra

Jazz Performance at Harvard

Jazz Orchestras

GSAS Student Center Jazz Band

Harvard Jazz Orchestra

Harvard Jazz Combo Initiative

Organ & Piano Societies

Harvard-Radcliffe Organ Society

Harvard Piano Society

Percussion

T.H.U.D. (The Harvard Undergraduate Drummers)

World

GSAS Student Center World Music Collective

Mariachi Véritas

Read about these and other music groups at Harvard on the Office for the Arts website.

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Performance Courses

Harvard’s Music Department offers a full composition program as well as a number of jazz, classical, creative and world music performance courses, which usually culminate in a student recital at the end of each term. Performance courses receive Harvard College credit; most are eligible for music concentration credit. Not all courses are offered each semester.