World music ensembles are open to graduate and undergraduate students. At the graduate level, they serve to deepen an appreciation for the complexities of musical sound, aesthetics, and performance practice; to train ethnomusicology students to learn music as part of fieldwork; and to prepare graduate students to teach similar ensembles. At an undergraduate level, they expose students to diverse and complex systems of musical thought and behavior, develop an appreciation for the relative nature of aesthetics, and complement other avenues (language classes, study abroad, comparative literature courses) for learning key features of the world's cultures. Ensemble topics vary from year to year, but have recently included Balinese Gamelan, Hindusthani Classical Music, Chinese String Ensemble, Jewish klezmer, Afro-Cuban, and Philippine kulintang. We utilize faculty expertise and community musicians in adjunct teaching roles. Our World Music Ensembles perform on and off campus. For more information on these ensembles, contact Sentienla Toy (st649@nyu.edu), Coordinator of the World Music Ensemble Program. The World Music Ensembles active during 2003-2004 are listed below.

Chinese Music Ensemble

Students learn basic Chinese instrumental techniques and ensemble music through performing selective arrangements. Instruction on the yangqin (hammered dulcimer) and zheng (21-string zither) is given by Susan Cheng, and erhu (2-string fiddle) is taught by Wang Guowei who also conducts the Chinese ensemble. Susan Cheng and Wang Gowei are both directors of Music from China www.musicfromchina.org

South Indian (Carnatic) Music

The South Indian music class teaches students the fundamentals of the raga system and the rhythm/tal system in a way that the students could use it to create their own music, and to improvise within that system.  Shobana Raj , an accomplished Carnatic vocalist and performer, also encourages students to sing with her or play a melodic instrument of their choice as she teaches the nuances and embellishments of the Carnatic style.

Instructor: Shobana Raghavan

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The music of Colombia's Pacific coast is one of Latin America's most African, featuring interlocking percussion, hocketed harmony singing, and a heptatonically-tuned marimba, all related to Central African musics but syncretized with Amerindian instruments and 17th-century Spanish Catholic liturgical music. Students in this class will learn the basic parts for cununo hand drums, bombo bass drums, marimba, and harmony singing for currulao, bunde, and related genres. NYU's is the first ethnomusicology ensemble featuring the music of the Colombian Pacific to be offered outside Colombia.

The Gamelan Dharma Swara operates under the auspices of the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in New York City. The group is made up of dancers and musicians of both Balinese and American origin who study and perform the traditions of the performing arts of Bali. The group performs the repertoire of the Gong Kebyar ensembles of Bali; more than 20 musicians play a range of tuned bronze xylophones with bamboo resonators, as well as tuned gongs, hand-drums, bamboo flutes and more. The music compositions of this style of music are dramatic and complex, and feature challenging individual parts as well as precise ensemble coordination. The ensemble rehearses at The Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia, 5 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10021, and perform at diplomatic functions and in the community at large. Christopher Romero, Executive Director, can be reached at 212-864-5598 or ckromero@nickonline.com.

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Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra

Led by renowned musician, scholar, and folklorist, NYU's Celtic Ensemble meets during the Spring semester and performs a variety of traditional music from the Celtic diaspora.

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Collegium Musicum

Director: Adjunct Professor Margaret Panofsky

The Collegium Musicum is open to the entire University community, although a majority comes from the graduate program of the Music Department. It is presently comprised of a vocal ensemble and a consort of viols with solo/continuo organ; in recent years it has included baroque wind instruments and harpsichord continuo. The ensemble undertakes a specific repertory each term to study that era's performance-practice concepts.

The core ensemble is a proficient concert-giving group that presents a recital every semester while striving to improve its performance skills. To ensure the continued vitality of the program, the Collegium also welcomes beginning viol students from the University to form preparatory consorts (previous musical experience, but no string background required).

Students have access to an extensive array of instruments in the Noah Greenberg Collection. The most recent acquisitions include Renaissance recorders and baroque violin bows (the gift of Tina Chancey). At present, there are sufficient viols for two full consorts; lutes, theorbo, and chitarrone; three harpsichords of different types; a newly restored chamber organ; full consorts of recorders, as well as other wind instruments.

Music example: Courante, from Suite 6, by Johann Hermann Schein, performed by the NYU Collegium Musicum

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The NYU Orchestra

The modern history of the NYU Orchestra begins in the 1940's, when Washington Square College (now CAS) lists Orchestra in their course bulletin, and has continued to do so in an unbroken run up to the present. Since then there have been some changes along the way, including in 1977, when the CAS ensemble merged with one from the School of Education to form a unified orchestra. In 1997, the Orchestra came under the auspices of the Center for Music Performance with a mission of inclusion for all members of the NYU community, and was temporarily reconfigured as the Festival String Orchestra. The Orchestra's membership has more than quadrupled since that time, and its instrumentation has evolved into a complete symphony orchestra, plus a variety of chamber ensembles and additional performance opportunities. The result is the 85-member NYU Orchestra of today, proudly carrying the traditions forward.

The NYU Orchestra performs its concerts just prior to the end of the fall and spring semesters. The Orchestra also performs at special University-wide events and for the children of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side at our annual Young People's Concert, and for the children of residence at the New York Foundling Hospital.

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