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Our Facilities

The Department of Music is housed in two buildings on either side of South Patterson Avenue:

The two buildings contain most of the classrooms, studios, offices, and practice rooms of the Department, including Souers Recital Hall.

The Department shares use of Hall Auditorium, a 735-seat venue adjacent to the King Library on campus, with several other University programs.

Miami University is pleased to be an All-Steinway School, and the Department of Music will exclusively feature Steinway & Sons pianos for all teaching, rehearsals, and performances.

Presser Hall

Presser Hall is named for the renowned music publisher Theodore Presser and for the foundation that bears his name. The Presser Foundation provided vital support for the construction of the building, which opened in 1931.

In 2008 Presser Hall was expanded and renovated thoroughly. Today it contains classrooms, rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, faculty studios and offices, libraries for band, choral, and orchestral music, and the Department of Music Office.

Presser Hall also contains several rooms with special purposes and equipment, including

  • the Electronic Music Studio, supporting classes in electronic and computer music, composition, recording, and music for moving image. Industry-standard hardware and software are refreshed each year. Support equipment includes a fully-stocked electronics workbench for projects ranging from circuit building/bending to interactive instrument construction.
  • the Music Technology Classroom, supporting a range of classes from electronic and computer music, to notation, recording, conducting, music education, and composition.
  • the Virtual Rehearsal Room (VROOM), where students practice and rehearse in front of a "virtual audience" (via video) that simulates the movement, sounds, and interruptions that may be found at a live concert.  The VROOM allows the student to choose from nine different virtual acoustical spaces and includes recording capability.
Exterior of Presser Hall in the Fall

Center for Performing Arts (CPA)

The Department of Music shares the Center for the Performing Arts with the Department of Theatre. The Center also houses the administrative offices of the College of Creative Arts.

Amos Music Library

The William T. and Dorothy R. Amos Music Library, located in the Center for the Performing Arts, is a division of Miami University's library system and houses all of the music holdings within the system. The collection includes some 14,000 books, 18,000 scores, 75 current periodical subscriptions, and the collected works of almost every major composer in the Western art music tradition.

A listening center contains computer workstations and traditional listening stations. Available recordings number nearly 20,000 items. Miami students also have access anywhere on campus to the online Naxos Music Library, which comprehends more than one million music tracks and which is growing constantly.

Souers Recital Hall

Sidney W. Souers Recital Hall is the primary venue for Miami University's series of recitals, chamber music, and master classes. Nearly 100 public events are presented in Souers each year. The hall seats 150 and currently houses two Steinway grand pianos, a model D and a model B.

Hall Auditorium

The building now known as Hall Auditorium was completed in 1908, being renamed in 1969 after Miami's fifth president, John W. Hall. A top-to-bottom renovation of the building, completed in 1992, replaced old equipment with state-of-the-art light and sound systems and created a beautiful, warm, acoustically precise venue with a new stage that is almost double the size of the old facility.

Hall Auditorium is the site for most of the Music Department's large concerts, as well as many concerts produced and supported by the university's Performing Arts Series. With a seating capacity of 735 and a location just a block from "uptown" in Oxford, Hall Auditorium is a convenient point of contact between Miami University performing artists and the public.

Glee Club on Stage at Hall Auditorium

Department of Music

The Miami University Department of Music encourages its students to develop their relationship to the discipline of music as they explore the world through the lens of a superb liberal arts education.