Music + Visual Art

Students in BGSU's DMA in Contemporary Music program are a recurring presence in northwest Ohio's arts institutions, where they find and present unexpected connections between sonic and visual arts. Since 2023, students from the DMA in Contemporary Music have performed for exhibit openings at the Sandusky Cultural Center. (Read more about the Spring 2026 opening.) DMA students also have performed in BGSU’s Willard Wankelman Gallery as well as the Toledo Museum of Art, with whom they partnered to present EAR|EYE: Listening and Looking–Contemporary Music and Art from 2015 to 2021. This popular series featured multiple concerts each year, which each taking place in a different gallery of contemporary art. DMA students continue to perform DMA@TMA concerts annually in museum's Great Gallery.

Composer Portraits

As part of its newly launched Composer Portrait series, the DMA in Contemporary Music program will present multiple concerts every year, with each devoted to an individual composer. Students choose each composer collectively, and invidual students curate each concert.

Fall 2025: Sofia Gubaidulina (curated by Stephen Eckert) | Program | Livestream
Spring 2026: Tyson Davis

DMA Alumni Albums

BGSU's growing network of DMA alumni remain active in contemporary music scenes around the world and boasts a discography of more than 40 albums. Many doctoral students take advantage of the College of Musical Arts’ state-of-the-art performance and recording facilities to embark on albums and other major creative projects during their studies.

New Music Festival

This annual event celebrates the contemporary arts through concerts, panels, art exhibitions, seminars, master classes and papers. Begun in 1980, the festival has hosted John Adams, John Luther Adams, Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Chen Yi, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Anthony Davis, Dai Fujikura, Philip Glass, John Harbison, Lou Harrison, Jennifer Higdon, Karel Husa, Aaron Jay Kernis, Joan La Barbara, David Lang, Paul Lansky, George Lewis, Steven Mackey, Robert Morris, Pauline Oliveros, Shulamit Ran, Bernard Rands, Terry Riley, Christopher Rouse, Frederic Rzewski, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Bright Sheng, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Steven Stucky, Morton Subotnick, Joan Tower, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Evan Ziporyn and more than 400 other guest composers and musicians.

DMA students play a vital role in every festival, performing as soloists and/or ensemble members in numerous concerts. Learn more about BGSU's New Music Festival.