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California Institute of the Arts

DMA: Performer-Composer

The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts

Performers stand on a brightly colored stage, holding a large banner. The stage is covered in geometric shapes.

Explore and experiment

The ethos of CalArts’ Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) Performer-Composer program is exploratory and experimental through and through. The program is not a double degree in performance and composition, but instead seeks to foster musical artists who holistically combine innovative performance practices with new compositional models. You and your peers will arrive from diverse stylistic origins, but all are driven by artistic visions that can be realized only by a meaningful expansion of the language of music beyond its current boundaries.

A woman dressed in black sits on a chair playing an obscure stringed instrument with a bow while another, to her right, plays a timpani drum on a stage washed in orange light.

Jeonghyeon Joo, DMA graduation recital

Interested in this program?

View our step-by-step application guide to learn more.

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Investigate, integrate, innovate

DMA: Performer-Composer

CalArts’ distinctive DMA Performer-Composer program is designed for advanced students who are already accomplished composers and skilled executants who desire to thoroughly integrate these practices in their original work. 

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Where the wild things play

A lone performer plays a saxophone, standing in the middle of an empty stage in a futuristic bandshell with a lawn in front and trees and sky in the background.

The composer Morton Feldman used the term “Wild Beast” as a metaphor for the ineffable generative force in art—making it the ideal name for CalArts’ iconic variable-use, indoor-outdoor music pavilion.

As a doctoral student in this challenging program, you will continue integrating your composing and performing practices, undertake rigorous research and creative projects to develop your work further, and become highly skilled as both an innovative professional able to disseminate your work, and potentially a future contributor to higher education in music.

Working closely with your faculty mentor, you will develop an individualized course of study built around composition and performance lessons, doctoral seminars, topic-driven research and explorations, performance projects, and a series of electives. Since DMA students also teach in The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts, you are required to continue developing your pedagogical skills through teaching practicums.

Designed to inspire you as a musician to evolve a practice in which you both create and perform your own work at the highest levels, the program draws upon practical and theoretical skills from music of the past and encourages you to speculate about music of the future. As you make new art, you’ll find the process of its creation is inseparable from its expression in the world. The program offers opportunities for study concentrations such as mastering original systems of improvisation, special methods for notation, nontraditional performance techniques, innovative approaches to interpretation of musical literature, incorporating new music and interactive media technologies, applied intercultural experimentation in music, interdisciplinary performance design, and more.

Students give recitals and other performances centered on original music and develop professional portfolios to highlight their creative accomplishments. In addition to solo performances, you may join or organize ensembles, sometimes with faculty participation, dedicated to exploring emerging musical languages. In keeping with the value CalArts places on interdisciplinary art, the Performer-Composer program also strongly supports opportunities to explore—and link your work with—disciplines beyond music.

Candidates admitted into the DMA program will have previously obtained a master’s degree in music, or in another field along with skills and knowledge that are commensurate with a master’s degree in music.

Admission requirements

The application process for the DMA Performer-Composer program consists of two sequential stages. First, you will submit CalArts’ standard application plus an online portfolio representative of your work.

Applicants selected to advance to stage two will be invited to the CalArts campus for an audition and teaching demonstration. Before applying, please familiarize yourself with the detailed application requirements and resources available to assist you in this important process. 

View application requirements

Degree requirements

DMA Performer-Composer candidates work closely with their faculty mentors to develop an individualized course of study, which is built around composition and/or performance lessons, doctoral seminars, topic-driven research and explorations, performance projects, teaching practicums, and a series of electives. 

View DMA Performer-Composer academic requirements

Interdisciplinary opportunities

In addition to CalArts’ naturally collaborative atmosphere, the Institute provides several programs of study that can be pursued concurrently with a student’s chosen metier, such as a concentration in Arts Education or Integrated Media.

Learn more about MFA concentrations

Courses you might take

In addition to the specific requirements for the DMA, candidates have the opportunity to take several elective courses. Browse the courses offered in the School of Music, including opportunities to study jazz, world music, experimental pop, film scoring, improvisation, electronic music, composition, vocal performance, African and Balinese ensembles, and much more.

Explore our course catalog

Research areas

Working with guidance from CalArts’ acclaimed faculty, candidates must produce a doctoral proposal that outlines a program of scholarly and creative research supporting original composition combined with execution. Any proposal that meets this broad criterion will be considered.

CalArts’ music faculty includes innovative, internationally recognized leaders in performance, composition, improvisation, jazz, world music, and music technology. Some current areas of creative activity and research among our faculty include:

  • New music composition and performance
  • Diverse disciplines of improvisation
  • Conventional and unconventional instrumental and vocal performance practices
  • Experimental sound practices, live electronic music, installation, and intermedia art
  • Interactive musical technologies, interface design, and robotics
  • New strategies for interdisciplinary performance design
  • Experimental jazz, rock, noise, and electronica
  • Applied intercultural experimentation in music
  • New tuning systems: theory and performance practice
  • Contemporary music theory, analysis, history, criticism, and aesthetics

Opportunities also exist for collaborations involving CalArts’ schools of Dance, Theater, Film, Art, and Critical Studies.

Meet the faculty

At CalArts, faculty and students are collaborators, teaching, learning, and working together as members of our community of artists.

Collaborative Performance

Student and Faculty Ensembles

From world music and contemporary jazz to experimental sound art and interdisciplinary collaborations, a dynamic range of ensembles provides unparalleled opportunities to explore diverse genres, push creative boundaries, and perform innovative works with renowned artists and peers.

A group of four musicians stand facing each other in a circle on a red-lit stage, playing a marimba, cymbals, and other percussion instruments

Improv Percussion Ensemble

Gallery

Some of our alumni

More School of Music alumni

Sit with Sound: A Conversation with Sarah Belle Reid

Alumni interview

“Both Charlie [Hayden] and Wadada [Leo Smith] … gave me permission to explore,” said performer, composer, and “sonic polyglot” Sarah Belle Reid (DMA 20), discussing her CalArts mentors. “They were both committed to wanting me to follow my own path. Neither cared about the ‘correct’ way to do things like playing the ‘right’ notes. Instead, they wanted me to say something myself, in whatever way it came out.” 

A motion-blurred photograph of a person with long hair playing a trumpet against a dark background

Photo by Scott Groller

Want to learn more?

We got you. Our Admissions team is all about providing the information you need to decide if CalArts is right for you. We’re excited to connect with you for a tour of our legendary campus, a virtual info session, or at one of our admissions events across the country or around the world. Take the next step—we’re here to help.