Schulich School of Music

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With your support, the Schulich School of Music’s brilliant students and faculty will transform music in the 21st century, and make it even more vital and relevant for generations to come.

The School offers the highest calibre of teaching and world-class research, which advance the creation and performance of music from a diversity of perspectives and disciplines. Schulich students are consistently recognized in the most prestigious local, national and international competitions.

Providing a unique intersection of music performance, creation, research and technology, the School is positioned to shape the future of music.

Advances in scholarship, technology and research tools – including digitization, artificial intelligence and big data – have opened exciting new avenues to understand, produce and share music. And creative links to brain research, medicine and sports science can enrich how we learn and perform music and its impact on our well-being.

Help the Schulich School of Music continue its great mission: bringing music to life.

Download: Schulich School of Music Case for Support

Reimagining the future of music performance

Through a transformation of the Strathcona Music Building, our goal is to create an unparalleled performance research and training environment.

Within the building’s redeveloped spaces, the School will use an innovative, multidisciplinary approach to music pedagogy and research, in collaboration with the Faculties of Science, Education and Medicine.

Your support can help:

Renew Pollack Hall to provide audiences and performers alike with a heightened concert experience:

The Hall needs improved accessibility, updated seating and lighting, a new grand piano, state-of-the-art sound recording and video equipment, a redesigned backstage and artists’ facilities, and aesthetic treatment to enhance the elegance of the historic entrance

Redevelop the East Wing of the building to bring together performance, health and science, providing students with acoustically enhanced practice rooms, ensemble rehearsal spaces, and teaching studios:

These spaces, as well as specialized research labs, will be equipped with the tools to examine performance in real time. We will also ensure a healthy aural environment for all musicians
This reimagined wing will include active learning classrooms, as well as exercise spaces and yoga and meditation rooms. A green roof completes our vision and aligns with McGill’s dedication to sustainability for its third century

Support high-level performance:

Through an endowed Chair in Performance Psychology we will recruit a world expert who will drive discovery, attracting other outstanding researchers and graduate students; collaborating with sports psychologists, neuroscientists and kinesiologists; and working with coaches and wellness professionals for the benefit of performers

Schulich School of Music: Reimagining the future of music performance

Recruiting and preparing world-quality artists and researchers

The School’s mission and reputation rests on its capacity to train performers, composers, researchers and scholars whose names resound on stages around the world, and who have the skills and training to become global leaders in their fields.

To do this, we need to offer opportunities that open doors to a new generation of brilliant students, attract and retain outstanding faculty members, and provide the resources befitting a world-class music school.

Donor support will help us to:

Create new scholarships and fellowships to ensure that top students choose McGill and have the resources to get the most out of their experience
Expand our professoriate with leading members of Canada’s top musical ensembles, such as the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Add scholarly and musical resources, including scores, volumes and digital resources for the Marvin Duchow Music Library, as well as renew our instrument bank
Expand our range of internship and entrepreneurship programs, so that Schulich students have access to real-world experiences aligned with their career goals, and entrepreneurship training that supports future-ready musicians

Building bridges to become a world centre for innovation in the arts

There are few places in the world where students can spend a morning performing with a symphony orchestra and an afternoon in a lab participating in a state-of-the-art motion capture project to determine how hand position affects sound production.

To cement Schulich as one of the world’s most innovative musical hubs, we are seeking support to help us create:

Research, teaching, learning and outreach initiatives within a newly renovated suite of laboratories and technology spaces, including funds for student training, artists-in-residence, postdoctoral fellowships, and strategic promotion of the spaces
A new music broadcasting initiative that ensures students have the music media skills to build careers, while expanding our capacity to record and disseminate our performances around the world
A new interdisciplinary innovation fund for projects that bring together different areas within the School and link with other areas at McGill

Schulich School of Music: Building bridges to become a world centre for innovation in the arts

Deepening connections to local and global communities

We are enhancing our ties and contributions to Montreal’s arts organizations and audiences, and building on international partnerships that help students to grow as musicians with a broad world view.

To help further these local and global connections, we are seeking funding to:

Expand travel opportunities for individual musicians and ensembles so budding performers can experience first-hand the cultural richness of the world’s great musical destinations, and also promote McGill and enhance the School’s reputation
Build deeper partnerships with Montreal’s artistic leaders and community organizations, through masterclasses, lectures and workshops
Engage with local Indigenous communities in meaningful ways
Allow students to share their own expertise with local schools
Build partnerships with community organizations to share music with marginalized populations