Bienen School of Music

The Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music is the music and performance arts school of Northwestern University. It is located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, United States. The school was previously known as the Northwestern University School of Music from 1895 until September 2008, when it was renamed to honor retiring University president Henry Bienen and his wife, Leigh Buchanan Bienen. Description The Bienen School offers performance degrees in all orchestral instruments, piano, guitar, voice, jazz studies, and conducting, as well as academic degrees in composition, musicology, music history, music education, and music theory and cognition. It offers a dual-degree undergraduate program in liberal arts, journalism, engineering, communication, or education and social policy in conjunction with those respective university schools. The Bienen School has approximately 125 faculty members, 400 undergraduate students, and 200 graduate students. History The Bienen School of Music is one of the oldest degree-granting music schools in the United States. Its beginnings date to 1873, when the Northwestern Female College and the Evanston College for Ladies were incorporated into the Northwestern University Woman's College. This new institution established the Conservatory of Music, and in 1891, Peter Christian Lutkin was named its director. In 1895, it became the School of Music, with Lutkin serving as its first dean.