About
Sacred Music at Notre Dame (SMND) is a community of faculty, students, and staff who are committed to the training of the future music leaders of our churches, concert halls, and schools and universities. We are an interdisciplinary and ecumenical research and teaching program with a Roman Catholic core. Our graduate program includes the Master of Sacred Music degree with specializations in Organ, Voice, and Choral Conducting, and the Calvin M. Bower Doctor of Musical Arts Program, offering the DMA degree in Organ or Choral Conducting performance.
SMND students learn from and work alongside world-class faculty. Our scholarly faculty study Gregorian chant, Hildegard von Bingen, the music of Benjamin Britten, medieval and contemporary liturgy, and the music of J.S. Bach. Our performance and composition faculty are specialists in new music, multidisciplinary concerts, opera, art song, Baroque organs and technique, and early music performance practices of the Renaissance.
SMND serves our wider community through student assistantships as musicians in local parishes, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and the Notre Dame Children’s Choir (NDCC). Unique among graduate sacred music programs, the NDCC is a community-based choral music education program led by our graduate students who teach choristers the fundamentals of singing, support music literacy, and lead our Liturgical Choir composed of child and adult vocalists in the English cathedral tradition.
Alumni of Sacred Music at Notre Dame hold major positions in Catholic and Protestant cathedrals, teach at seminaries and universities, perform throughout the world, and lead community and school choral programs. 100% of our students find positions in music post-graduation.