The Hollywood Reporter: CSUN’s Film Composing School Among World’s Best

  • The Hollywood Reporter ranked CSUN amongst the best in film composing education. Stock photo.

  • Photo by Lee Choo.

Students learning the art of music composition for film and television at California State University, Northridge’s Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication are getting one of the best such educations in the world, according to entertainment professionals surveyed by T​he Hollywood Reporter.

CSUN appears on the magazine’s Top 25 Music Schools for Composing for Film and TV list, putting it in the company of the world’s elite music programs, along with the USC Thornton School of Music, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, The Juilliard School in New York, Berklee College of Music in Boston, and Royal College of Music in London. The Hollywood Reporter polled more than 600 entertainment pros to compile the annual ranking.

“Winning this ranking illustrates the uniqueness of our programs, and it places us amongst the finest music institutions in the world,” said professor Steven Thachuk, head of Guitar Studies and interim chair for CSUN’s Department of Music. “It’s a testament to our faculty, and especially work of our students, who have gone into this impossibly competitive field and excelled.

“Our professors and faculty stay current in a rapidly developing field, which is very difficult,” Thachuk continued. “It requires them to remain professionally active in the field while also teaching at the school. This not only provides the best in training, but allows our students to find worthwhile internships in the film composition discipline.”

The Hollywood Reporter lauded CSUN’s high-tech facilities, which feature a large scoring lab with 24 stations including iMacs with Logic, ProTools LE and Finale, as well as a smaller lab with extensive software and sample libraries. The magazine also noted the affordability of CSUN’s program.

CSUN’s music programs have also been lauded for being among the nation’s best by such publications as ​Variety ​and ​The Wrap. 

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