Kohl Building & Conservatory of Music

Oberlin’s jazz studies department is housed in the Bertram and Judith Kohl Building, which holds the largest privately-owned jazz music collection in the country and is the first LEED Gold-certified music facility in the world. The Kohl Building and Bibbins Hall, which is right next door, are the main buildings of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Media Gallery

A large white and wavy building.
A conductor holding a baton elegantly conducts a group of orchestra students in Finney Chapel.
Four students are smiling as they hold large frames of artwork.
About 15 students and a dance professor stretch their legs in a wide dance studio.
An ensemble of a trumpet player, a guitar player, and a drum player.
Four students holding stringed instruments stand before an audience on a stage.
A full orchestra performs in front of a majestic organ.
Two long-haired actresses in suits argue with each other while another actor watches in the background under red and dark lighting.
A student presents on a piece of art work in front of an audience of 12 people sitting in blue fold-up chairs.
A cupid statue and fountain stand in front of a large, square tan building against a blue sky.
Five students in a horn ensemble of trumpet, french horn, and trombone, perform a quintet together outside a building with long hexagonal windows.
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🎶 Oberlin's Conservatory of Music

The Oberlin Conservatory is the oldest continually operating music conservatory in the country and one of the only conservatories adjacent to a world-class liberal arts college. With majors ranging from historical performance to electronic music, and with 42 areas of private study, Oberlin Conservatory of Music transforms talented undergraduate students into award-winning musicians, composers, performers, and scholars.

Conservatory of Music Areas of Study

The Con offers 42 areas of study across 11 divisions, including classical and jazz performance, composition, musicology, and Oberlin’s unique TIMARA program (Technology in Music and Related Arts). Conservatory students can take full advantage of Oberlin’s College of Arts and Sciences through our Double-Degree Program, which allows students to graduate with degrees from both the college and conservatory in just five years. Non-conservatory students can also engage with music by taking secondary lessons with conservatory students (for cheap!), playing in small ensembles or a capella groups, and even taking conservatory classes through the Musical Studies major or Music minor. One of Oberlin Conservatory's newest areas of study is the African American Music Minor.

TIMARA & Recording Arts

TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) is a program designed for students who wish to combine traditional music skills with the latest in music technology and electronic & computer music. This course of study emphasizes the application of technology to careers in composition, new media, and performance.

Oberlin also offers classes and programs in Recording Arts & Production. Nine concert venues across campus provide a robust training ground for recording acoustic music, ranging from full symphony orchestras to chamber music and jazz combos.

Practicing Arts at Oberlin

🎭 Theater
Oberlin’s theater program combines intensive mentorship in acting, directing, playwriting, and production, with innumerable opportunities in our production shops and theaters. The theater department produces more than 10 shows a year and employs upwards of 100 students, ensuring ample opportunities for hands-on production experience and creative storytelling.

🖼️ On-Campus Art Museum
The Allen Memorial Art Museum is widely regarded as one of the top five college art museums in the country, and it holds a variety of virtual and in-person programs to ensure accessibility for all. The famous Art Rental Program allows Oberlin students to rent an original work of art for a semester for just $5! You could hang a Picasso, Lichtenstein, or Dalí in your dorm room!

🎨 Studio Art
Oberlin’s studio art department offers studio training in a broad range of 2D, 3D, and 4D mediums. Studio art majors get to design and install their own exhibitions, and all art students can take advantage of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, located right next door.

🕺🏽 Dance
The Oberlin Dance Department provides many opportunities to manage, choreograph, and perform traditional and contemporary techniques. Contact improvisation was founded at Oberlin in 1972 and there are more than 17 movement-based clubs on campus, including And What?! (one of Oberlin's hiphop dance groups), Vibe Tap & Jazz, and OC Aerialists, along with local internships and youth mentorship opportunities. Girls in Motion is an afterschool dance program run by Obies that gets local middle school students moving!

📝 Creative Writing
Oberlin was one of the first institutions to offer undergraduates the rare opportunity to major in creative writing—not as a concentration in another department, but as an independent discipline in its own right. Creative Writing provides an intense and rigorous course of study with instruction, studio training, and coursework in a variety of genres, including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, translation, screenwriting, and hybrid forms.

🍿 Cinema Studies at the Apollo Movie Theater
The Oberlin Cinema Studies program was one of the first of its kind at the undergraduate level and introduces students to the craft, history and cultural meaning of film, television, and digital media. Students have access to fully-equipped sound stages, green screens, animation rooms, editing suites and classrooms. Many of these facilities are found in the Apollo Movie Theater in downtown Oberlin, which was built in 1913 and is unique in its art-deco theater style. Alumni have gone on to work at companies such as PBS, CNN, and HBO, and have also screened their work at leading film festivals.

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