Cornell College’s music department has moved quickly to embrace student interest in writing and performing contemporary music, and starting in fall 2025 it will offer a new major: contemporary commercial music.
The major is part of a national movement representing cultural respect and reconciliation between the Western classical culture dominating higher education and the popular music culture of our everyday lives, says Ben Laur, artist instructor of voice and director of Cornell’s Pop/Contemporary Ensemble.
Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Music Chris Nakielski pioneered the department’s exploration of popular music in 2023-24 by introducing his Contemporary Songwriting course. During a 2023 Cornell Summer Research Institute project he and students built a recording studio in Armstrong Hall that is now booked seven days a week.
In fall 2024 the Pop/Contemporary Ensemble burst onto the scene and grew from 12 to 20 members in one semester. By February 2025 they were opening for Cornell’s Big Event artist, rapper bbno$.
“The idea that students in the Pop Ensemble who did not feel represented in one of our classical ensembles but have found a home here is mirrored in the idea that there is room for more than Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven—much as I love them—in our studies,” Laur says. “There is room for the African-American musical traditions of rock, pop, and hip-hop, and traditions of varied cultures, with every bit as much artistic and pedagogical value.”
Watch Cornell’s Pop/Contemporary Ensemble performing as the opening act for The Big Event.
To support the new major, the courses Audio Engineering and Contemporary Songwriting II are being added to the curriculum.
Both Nakielski and Laur hold doctoral degrees in music, but importantly for the new courses, both perform and record popular music. Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Instrumental Music Josh Neuenschwander joins them in having expertise at running a recording studio with DAWs or digital audio workstations.
Laur says the new major will prepare graduates with practical skills they can use to gig out as working musicians, to prepare for advanced degrees in audio engineering or acoustics, or to supplement majors in business or education.
As a guitarist with more than seven years of performance experience, sophomore Oskar Diyali says being lead guitarist in the Pop/Contemporary Ensemble fulfilled his dream of performing at a college level, and the contemporary commercial music degree gives it added credibility.
“The new major will give students more ways to grow and take our sound seriously,” Diyali says. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how it brings fresh energy and new creative collaborations to the department.”
Likewise, in its proposal for the new major, music faculty noted that everyone in the department supports it and, in fact, there is considerable excitement about it.
“I have high hopes for this major and the value its associated courses will bring to our students,” Laur says. “It is an exciting time to make music on the Hilltop, indeed.”