Bienen School of Music

The Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music, or Bienen School of Music, is an undergraduate and graduate institution devoted to musical performance and academics. Located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, the school was known as the Northwestern University School of Music from 1895 until 2008. In September 2008, the school was named to honor retiring University president Henry Bienen and his wife, Leigh Buchanan Bienen.DescriptionOne of the top schools of music in the United States, the Bienen School offers performance degrees in all orchestral instruments, keyboard, voice, music composition, jazz studies, and conducting, as well as academic degrees in musicology, music history, music education, and music theory and cognition. It is one of the few music schools that offers a dual-degree undergraduate program in liberal arts, science, journalism, engineering, communication, education, or social policy in conjunction with those respective university schools. The School of Music has about 125 faculty members, over 400 undergraduate students, and over 200 graduate students. In 2010 the school had an acceptance rate of approximately 10%, accepting about 200 undergraduate and graduate students out of more than 2,000 applicants.HistoryInitially, the Women's College of Northwestern University contained what was then called the Conservatory of Music, founded by Oren E. Locke in the 1880s. As of 1891, however, enrollment at the Conservatory was stagnating at only 40 students. Peter Christian Lutkin, a noted church organist who ran his own private music school in downtown Chicago, was appointed director in that year, and began widely expanding the curriculum to include not only keyboard and voice instruction but also theory and practice courses that he felt would appeal to amateurs and educators. The Conservatory was soon reorganized as a department within the College of Liberal Arts, and Peter Lutkin was made a professor and the chair of the department. Under his control, the curriculum was further expanded to include music history, counterpoint and harmony. In 1895, the department had a strong enrollment of 200 students and was formally reorganized as the School of Music. Lutkin continued to serve as dean until 1931.