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William Paterson University is accredited by National Association of Schools of Music
Our outstanding Department of Music prepares you for careers in classical performance, jazz performance and composition, sound engineering arts, music education, music and entertainment industries, and popular music. Our music students work directly with world-renowned faculty who are also in-demand performers. They benefit from exceptional student performance opportunities with ensembles, both on campus and throughout the New York metropolitan area. They also gain hands-on experience in our state-of-the-art music production and recording studios.
WP Music welcomes students who may have suffered from recent collegiate program closures and we are committed to helping them finish their degrees in music. We are one of the most stylistically diverse programs in the nation, with many options for aspiring performers, composers, educators, sound engineers, and music businesspersons. We are happy to facilitate transferring to WP. Please click Apply/Audition and reach out to our Chairperson Dr. Christopher Herbert and Director of Music Admissions Skyler Hagner.
Alumni in arts, humanities, and social sciences are employed or in graduate school within 6 months after graduation
Average starting salaries in Music (NACE)
Noteworthy Music Jobs and Mid-Career Salaries with 8+ Years of Experience (PayScale)
Billboard Magazine, the top trade magazine for the music industry, has listed William Paterson University in New Jersey as having one of the top music business programs in the country.
View academic program requirements and course descriptions in the University Course Catalog:
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The music education program is designed to provide future music educators with a solid basis for professional success as a teacher through courses in performance, theory, music history, music education, education, and liberal studies.
This program, for students who possess both exceptional performance abilities and aspirations, demands an intense commitment to both music practice and academics.
The jazz studies program is unique among college programs, offering an emphasis on small-group playing and a genuine commitment to the jazz tradition. One of the nation's five longest-running jazz degree programs, its faculty are all top New York professionals. Students currently come to the jazz program from 23 US states and six foreign countries.
The music major at William Paterson University offers a platform for surveying the professional musical landscape. Students learn about all areas of the music world: performance, business, education and technology while interacting with students and professionals in those respective areas.
This program is for students whose primary instrument is the laptop or computer or other digital and electronic machines. The BA DMC is centered around creativity and composition within the realm of digital music, including EDM, Hip-Hop, and other genres where beats and digital music are the focus. Students will also explore elements of audio production. A minor in music business is an option for students who want more business knowledge and career opportunities.
The bachelor of arts with popular music emphasis examines contemporary popular music from a global perspective and through the study of social media and songwriting.
The William Paterson University Sound Engineering Arts program offers students the essential combination of the technical, theoretical, practical and musical areas of the audio arts. More Info »
This minor is for students interested in recording, producing, arranging, mixing and mastering music; using the laptop as a complete production tool. The two main courses - Digital Music Creation I and II - will step the student through the process of creating a complete and compelling musical production beginning with the very basics of digital audio workstations and ending with a completed album in collaboration with other musical creators.
Led by an experienced faculty, the minor in Music & Entertainment Industries program is structured to provide the background you need to secure a career in the music and entertainment business.
The musical studies minor at William Paterson University offers a platform for surveying the professional musical landscape including performance, business, education and technology.
The Sound Engineering Arts (SEA) minor allows students to explore the recording and live sound arts. This minor fosters a more nuanced understanding of music production, including microphone usage, working with DAWs, basic editing, mastering, and production techniques.. More Info »
The jazz studies concentration offers a comprehensive experience in enhanced small jazz ensemble, solo performance, and arranging/composition and the potential for high-level, primary source research and writing only available in the New York area. More Info »
The music education concentration allows students to enhance teaching skills, bring performance skills to a higher level, and gain greater personal insight into the field of music education. More Info »
This 12-credit certificate program for practicing music educators whose specialty is not jazz consists of 3 courses and a semester of applied lessons. It can be completed in one year and can be stacked with other courses to complete a Master of Music. More Info »
This 16-credit certificate program for classical musicians who have completed college and wish to hone their performance skills consists of 2 semesters of applied lessons, ensembles, and electives, and culminates in a certificate recital. It can be completed in one year and can be stacked with other courses to complete a Master of Music. More Info »
This 16-credit certificate program for jazz musicians who have completed college and wish to hone their performance skills consists of 2 semesters of applied lessons, ensembles, and electives, and culminates in a certificate recital. It can be completed in one year and can be stacked with other courses to complete a Master of Music. More Info »
In our music programs, students learn in-demand skills that employers have identified as critical for job candidates, including:
Graduates with the BM degree pursue careers as classical performers and composers; jazz performers, composers, and arrangers; singer/songwriters, sound engineers, music teachers, and music licensing and music marketing professionals, among others. Opportunities for those with the BA in music studies include performer, producer, music booking agent, music editor, music critic, and other positions in the legal areas of the music and entertainment industry. The BA with a popular music emphasis can lead to a career as a professional performer, singer/songwriter, music producer, promotions director, or music composer for social media or video games.
And we're ready to help you grow. At William Paterson, we provide students with the skills, knowledge, and experience they need to forge forward as a powerhouse—both in the classroom and in their careers. Apply today to discover your potential.
Bill Charlap, the acclaimed pianist and director of jazz studies at William Paterson University, teams up with bass giant Christian McBride and drum master Kenny Washington for a concert of sublime jazz trio music at the highest level on Sunday, October 11 as part of the fall 2026 Jazz Room series on campus.
The concert, which begins at at 3:00 p.m. in the Shea Center for Performing Arts on campus, is sponsored by Barbara Thoen in honor of her husband Wayne Thoen.
Other fall series performers include the Art Blakey Alumni Band: Carl Allen’s Messengers of Jazz on Sunday, November 1, and saxophonist Bob Mintzer with the WP Jazz Orchestra on Sunday, November 22. All concerts begin at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets for this concert are $36 for the general public, and $33 for WP faculty, staff, alumni, and senior citizens. WP students are admitted free with ID. The concert will be preceded by “Sittin’ In,” the Jazz Room’s accompanying “meet the artist” concert preview featuring interviews with jazz artists and guest speakers. This informal discussion, free to all Jazz Room ticketholders, begins at 2:00 p.m., one hour prior to the concert, in Shea Recital Hall 101. For tickets or additional information, visit wp-presents.org, or contact the Shea Center Box Office at 973.720.2371 or boxoffice@wpunj.edu.
Pianist Bill Charlap has performed with many of the leading artists of our time including Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ron Carter, Phil Woods, Gerry Mulligan and Tony Bennett. He won a 2016 Grammy for Best Traditional Pop vocal Album for Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap: The Silver Lining, The Songs of Jerome Kern, and has been nominated for four more Grammys, including his 2025 album with vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, Elemental. Charlap joined William Paterson University in 2015 as director of its internationally known Jazz Studies Program, now in its 53rd year. He tours all over the world, and his annual New York engagements include appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Village Vanguard. From 2004 through 2023, he was artistic director of New York City’s Jazz in July Festival at 92NY. He has produced concerts for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Chicago Symphony Center, and the Hollywood Bowl. Among the honorees at 92NY’s 2025 gala, he received Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2024 Award for Artistic Excellence.
Bassist Christian McBride is one of the most preeminent musicians of his time. Over the last three decades, the 11-time Grammy winner is known as a dynamic musician and recording artist, a prolific composer-arranger-producer, a distinguished curator of culture, and a dedicated educator and mentor. A prolific bandleader, McBride’s ensembles are each distinctive extensions of his tremendous creative inspiration, which span and synthesize straight-ahead, experimental, free-leaning jazz, funk, soul, Latin, hip hop, and rhythm and blues. His celebrated groups — Inside Straight, The Christian McBride Big Band, Ursa Major, Christian McBride’s New Jawn, The Christian McBride Trio, and A Christian McBride Situation — have not only enjoyed consistent critical acclaim, but they have also emphasized his role as an early presenter of rising stars, like saxophonist Nicole Glover, pianist Christian Sands, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. McBride also hosts NPR’s public radio program Jazz Night in America as well as The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian on SiriusXM. He is artistic director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, the TD James Moody Jazz Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Jazz House Kids.
Drummer Kenny Washington is renowned as one of the most enlightened and proficient performers and teachers of the art of jazz drumming. Arriving on the scene in 1977, Washington has been in constant demand and has performed and recorded with many legendary artists including Lee Konitz, Betty Carter, Johnny Griffin, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, George Cables, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Stitt, James Spaulding, Phil Woods, Bill Charlap, Ahmad Jamal, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Milt Jackson, Bobby Watson, Curtis Lundy, and, Tommy Flanagan, to name a few. Washington has taught at Juilliard, SUNY Purchase, and New York University, and continues to share his knowledge with hundreds of students each year.
William Paterson University has been a flagship of jazz education for more than 50 years and is recognized nationally and internationally for its Jazz Studies Program and nationally acclaimed Jazz Room series of concerts each fall and spring.
The Jazz Room series is the longest-running program of its kind in the United States. Launched in 1978, the Jazz Room has welcomed more than 500 jazz legends to the stage, including Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Joe Williams, Marian McPartland, Slide Hampton, Kenny Burrell, Joe Lovano, Kenny Garrett, Clark Terry, Michael and Randy Brecker, the Vanguard Orchestra, and more. Concerts have encompassed the entire spectrum of jazz, from early jazz and swing to avant garde, and from intimate solo performances to big bands.
The performance series provides support for the University’s internationally renowned Jazz Studies Program, founded in 1973. The program draws students from across the United States and abroad under the current direction of Grammy Award-winning pianist Bill Charlap.
The Jazz Room at William Paterson University has been made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. WBGO 88.3 FM serves as media sponsor for the series.
