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The BM in Music Performance: Jazz and Commercial Music provides opportunities for students to perform and to expand on their skills as players and improvisers. Students are trained to know jazz repertoire and to embrace the jazz style while also looking to the future of music making through courses and ensembles.

WVU jazz and commercial music students are trained to embrace technology, to strive for creativity in composition and arranging, and to develop their own leadership skills—all of this to be best prepared for a career in the modern music world. Students learn that jazz is not merely a destination but also a methodology for music making that can be applied to various types of creative and commercial music.

Students who earn the Bachelor of Music in Performance: Jazz and Commercial Music will be able to:

• perform, improvise, compose, arrange, and score music of various jazz and commercial idioms,
• demonstrate knowledge of American music history and literature, including the cultural sources and influences of jazz and American commercial music,
• demonstrate the ability to work as a performer and composer/arranger with a variety of jazz, studio, and commercial music idioms in various settings and with various sizes and types of ensembles, including the ability to produce the appropriate expressive style of the music being created or presented. Independent studies, internships, field work, and similar experiences are strongly encouraged.
• demonstrate the ability to notate original compositions and/or arrangements
• demonstrate solo and ensemble abilities in a variety of settings.