It's Inauguration Day!
Congratulations, Matt vandenBerg, OWU's 17th President!
View details for Inauguration Day and stream the event live.
Congratulations, Matt vandenBerg, OWU's 17th President!
View details for Inauguration Day and stream the event live.
New for 2021, Ohio Wesleyan has merged music, theatre, and dance programs to create exciting new collaborations and opportunities for students. The department is filled with creative performing artists, experienced and multi-talented faculty, and passionate students.
Audition & Scholarship Information
OWU's Performing Arts Department fulfills a need for students from across the university. We welcome music and theatre majors who want to launch a career participating or teaching in the arts, minors and non-majors who participate in productions and ensembles, and students taking a class to enjoy and learn more about a favorite activity or to explore a new world in dance, theatre, or music.
With OWU's liberal arts structure, students from any area can view performing arts through the lenses of other areas for which they study, from accounting to zoology. And participation in performing arts can enrich other fields they pursue. Many students in the department double major in another discipline, such as Business, Economics, English, Health & Human Kinetics, Spanish or French, Politics & Government, Psychology, and many more.
The Bachelor of Arts in Music major provides sufficient preparation for students to enter graduate music programs, and it provides the breadth and flexibility of a liberal arts education, giving students the option to take a wide range of courses and even complete a second major without going beyond eight semesters of study.
The Bachelor of Arts in Music Education culminates with professional licensure upon graduation. This curriculum for the major provides allows ambitious students the opportunity to complete a double-major with another discipline within a 4-year plan of study.
The Bachelor of Arts in Theatre provides both breadth and depth, as it prepares students to engage with the world as theatre artists. Students can double-major during their four years on campus and often fold interdisciplinary interests into their performance work. Also, Theatre majors who complete an Education Minor can earn their teaching licensure upon graduation.
Dance
Music – Academic
Music – Performance
Theatre
Pursuing a minor while at OWU will expand your knowledge, add depth to your major, enhance your résumé, and allow you to explore academic areas of interest.
OWU is people. Brilliant, engaging, passionate, friendly, genuine people. Meet some of them here.
Professor Granger is a musical theatre book writer, playwright, theatre scholar, singer-songwriter, and actor/director whose works are an ongoing exploration of how we treat one another across lines of race, gender and class.
Bradford Sadler has performed professionally as a touring actor across the Midwest and East Coast, at the Great Shakespeare Festival in Winona, Minnesota, and in regional theatres.
Professor Edwards serves as conductor of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, coordinator of the music education program, and director of the OWU Summer Music Camp. Classes he teaches include Rock History, Beginning Conducting, and How To Change The World.
Jennifer Whitehead frequently appears in staged and concert works in central Ohio, and her recent roles with Opera / Columbus include Kate Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Guinevere in Camelot, Papagena in The Magic Flute, and Yum-Yum in The Mikado.
Professor Chiou holds degrees in piano performance from Oberlin Conservatory (BM) and the University of Michigan (MM, DMA) as well as a master's degree in music theory from the University of Michigan.
Professor Hiester, a tenor, teaches voice and conducting, and directs the opera and choral programs. He was a winner of both the Schloss Leopoldskron competition in Salzburg, and the West Palm Beach Opera Competition.