As one of the University of Miami's three inaugural academic units in 1926, what was then called the School of Music was initially led by Bertha Foster, a dynamo who organized 1,000 schoolchildren to sing at the University’s groundbreaking event. One of Foster’s first students, Christine Asdurian, an Armenian orphan adopted in America, wrote the music for the University's anthem, “Alma Mater, Stand Forever,” that fall.
The school’s symphony orchestra, launched in 1927, was the city’s leading classical music ensemble through the 1950s. Members of what is now the Frost Band of the Hour, founded in 1933, became the first bandleaders and music educators in Miami high schools.
The School of Music came into its own as a groundbreaking innovator under the transformative leadership of William F. Lee, dean from 1964 to 1982. He launched the country’s first music business and music engineering programs, and one of its first jazz programs, attracting future stars like Pat Metheny and Carmen Lundy, B.M. ’80. Notable faculty joined the school, including Frederick Fennell, the inventor of the wind ensemble, and Jim Progris, who started the Media Scoring and Production program, another first of its kind. Four new buildings were added, including the Maurice Gusman Concert Hall, designed by iconic Miami Modernist architect Morris Lapidus, and enrollment mushroomed from 165 students to 825.
To sustain its rapid expansion, the school, under Dean James William Hipp, reorganized to include eight departments. Festival Miami, now known as the Frost Music Live Signature Series, launched in 1984, joined by the Salzburg Summer Opera Program. In 2003 Phillip and Patricia Frost donated $33 million to name the school, at that time the largest gift ever made to a university-based music school. Naming gifts from L. Austin and Marta Weeks led to the construction of the Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library and Technology Center, and the L. Austin Weeks Center for Recording and Performance.
Starting in 2007, Dean Shelton G. Berg, a renowned music artist and educator, led a transformation in the school’s pedagogy to meet radical changes in the music world. Known as the Frost Method, it is a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary approach that fosters a broad range of creative and professional skills, from composing to entrepreneurship. The Henry Mancini Institute also joined the Frost School, where talented students perform and record with luminaries like Gloria Estefan, B.A. ’78, Hon. ’93, and Stevie Wonder. New popular music programs, the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music program and the Modern Artist Development and Entrepreneurship major, were added. The Donna E. Shalala MusicReach program was instituted in 2008 and provides mentorship to more than 1,000 underserved schoolchildren. During the summer, the Frost School presents the classical music program at Festival Napa Valley in California and a Jazz Academy in partnership with Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Colorado.
The school marked another milestone in 2023 with the opening of the $36.5 million Knight Center for Music Innovation, a 25,000-square-foot center with a world-class recital hall and a space for cutting-edge technological experimentation.
Read the full issue of Miami magazine’s centennial edition online.
Read the full issue of Miami magazine’s centennial edition online.
