Find opportunities in and outside of the classroom to develop the qualities that make you a distinct musician. Expand your talents. Improvise. Create from scratch. Reach across disciplines. Perform and find yourself as an artist.
Make Your Ensemble
Explore new facets of your artistry. Each semester, you will participate in an improv ensemble. Ensembles recast each semester, allowing you to choose the type of music you want to make, the musicians you want to play with, and the directors you want as your mentors.
Elective Ensembles
One semester, you’ll be playing in the Electric Miles Davis Ensemble, under the direction of a musician like Adam Holzman, who played with Miles in the 1980s. The next, you’ll play in The New School's Studio Orchestra, collaborating with Mannes performers in our largest ensemble, under the direction of legendary musicians. Make any of our 80+ elective ensembles your own.
Elective ensembles include:
- Abbey Road Ensemble
- Afro-Cuban Orchestra
- Alice Coltrane Ensemble
- Americana Ensemble
- Art of Solo Performance
- Blue Note Ensemble
- Brazilian Ensemble
- CBGB Ensemble
- Charlie Parker Ensemble
- Chick Corea Ensemble
- Cobra Ensemble
- Coltrane Ensemble
- Contemporary R&B Ensemble
- Creating New Music Workshop
- Cross-Genre Improvisation Ensemble
- ECM Ensemble
- Electric Miles Davis Ensemble
- Explorations in Swing
- Gospel Chorus
- Grateful Dead Ensemble
- Herbie Hancock Ensemble
- Indian Ensemble
- Jazz Messengers Ensemble
- Joe Henderson Ensemble
- Julius Hemphill Ensemble
- Laurel Canyon Ensemble
- Linear Composition for Improvisors
- Live Electronica Orchestra
- Make a Record with Matt Wilson Ensemble
- Mingus Ensemble
- Motor City Groove
- New School Studio Orchestra
- NYC Composers Ensemble
- Progressive Rock Ensemble
- R&B Ensemble
- Recording and Production Workshop
- Shelf Life
- Sonny Rollins Ensemble
- Standards Ensemble
- Studio Pop Workshop
- Sun Ra Ensemble
- Super Trios
- Thelonious Monk Ensemble
- Vocal Blues Ensemble
- Vocal Jazz Workshop
- Wayne Shorter Ensemble
Begin Your Career in New York City
Don’t just live in one of the most thriving music scenes in the world—play in it. With partnerships around the city, you can easily take part in jam sessions at some of the greatest jazz clubs in NYC, like Smalls and Zinc Bar, or find yourself onstage
at cultural hotspots like the Morgan Library and the High Line. Play in venues across the city and make all of New York your stage, bandstand, studio, and cultural playground.
The World Is Your Stage
Travel the world as an artist. Our international partnerships will develop you into the kind of musician you want to be. Play gigs at the Bern International Jazz Festival in Switzerland in one of the selected quartets, or represent the school with your
performing talents at conferences and festivals around the globe. Share your unique voice with the world in one of the partnerships and opportunities we provide every year.
Internships
Why wait to launch your career until you graduate? Start performing and making connections now in a world center of jazz—New York City.
We offer a robust music industry internship program. Our students have interned at organizations such as the Mingus Foundation, EMI/Blue Note Records, Nonesuch Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center, ASCAP, VH1 Save-the-Music, the Bunker Studio, Chelsea
Music Festival, Le Poisson Rouge, the Jazz Gallery, and others.
Our Gig Office can also give you a start at becoming your own entrepreneur. We offer an enormous range of performance opportunities and will teach you how to market yourself as a performer.
Make connections with the music industry, with working professionals, and with your fellow students in the cultural capital of the world.