Music Therapy

What Distinguishes the NYU Master’s Program in Music Therapy?

The NYU Master’s Program in Music Therapy offers an exceptional combination of musicianship, clinical training, psychotherapeutic depth, research, and professional development. Located within NYU Steinhardt and alongside the renowned Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy, the program provides students with opportunities that extend well beyond traditional graduate music therapy training.

Diverse, Experienced Faculty and Individualized Training

Students learn from a diverse faculty of experienced clinicians, musicians, researchers, and scholars whose expertise spans a wide range of approaches, populations, and areas of music therapy practice. This breadth exposes students to different clinical perspectives while allowing them to develop their own emerging professional identity and areas of specialization.

The program is highly selective, maintaining a student-to-faculty ratio of approximately 4:1 to support individualized instruction, close mentorship, and meaningful engagement between students and faculty. Class sizes typically range from 5 to 18 students, depending on the design and educational goals of each course

A Strongly Music-Centered Approach

Music is at the heart of the NYU program. Students develop advanced clinical musicianship and improvisational skills, learning how to use music responsively, creatively, and intentionally in the therapeutic moment. Rather than simply learning techniques for applying music in clinical settings, students are challenged to develop the musical awareness and flexibility needed to create meaningful music with and for their clients.

An Exceptional Breadth of Clinical Experience

NYU provides students with an extraordinarily diverse range of clinical placements across the lifespan and across clinical settings. Students have opportunities to work in schools, hospitals and medical centers, psychiatric and forensic units, rehabilitation programs, VA facilities, geriatric settings, community programs, and other specialized clinical environments.

Clinical experience begins early in the program, with pre-internship experiences followed by extensive internship training. This breadth enables students to encounter a wide range of clients, clinical needs, professional environments, and approaches to music therapy practice.

Advanced Specialization in Psychotherapeutic Music Therapy

NYU offers advanced training in psychotherapeutic music therapy, integrating clinical musicianship with psychological, psychotherapeutic, and theoretical perspectives. Students develop an individualized area of clinical specialization and learn to understand and use music within the context of therapeutic relationships, clinical processes, and the broader needs of the people they serve.

The Nordoff-Robbins Center at NYU

The internationally renowned Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy is housed within NYU Steinhardt, creating an exceptional connection between graduate education, clinical practice, research, community engagement, and advanced professional training.

NYU students can pursue pre-internship and internship experiences at the Center, receiving specialized exposure to Nordoff-Robbins music therapy and its emphasis on clinical musicianship, improvisation, observation, clinical thinking, and the therapeutic relationship.

The relationship can also extend well beyond the master's degree. After becoming professional music therapists, graduates can continue their development through the Center's post-graduate Nordoff-Robbins training, This provides a distinctive continuum of professional development—from graduate education, through clinical internship, to advanced specialization and professional certification.

An Integrated Educational Experience

What distinguishes NYU is not simply the strength of any one of these areas, but the way they come together. Students have the opportunity to develop simultaneously as musicians, clinicians, psychotherapists, researchers, and reflective practitioners within one of the world's major research universities.

The combination of rigorous musicianship, extensive clinical experience, psychotherapeutic training, research opportunities, and access to the Nordoff-Robbins Center creates a uniquely comprehensive environment for students preparing for advanced professional work in music therapy.

The degree is approved by the New York State Education Department and qualifies you for Licensure in Creative Arts Therapy (LCAT) after graduation and 1,500 hours of post-graduate supervised practice. The degree is also approved by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) and upon graduation qualifies a student to apply for national certification in music therapy (MT-BC). 

When you finish the degree, you will also have developed your own advanced specialization in an area of psychotherapeutic music psychotherapy in which you would like to pursue your music therapy career.

The New York University Master of Arts in Music Therapy program is an on-campus academic program that enables a graduate to meet the educational requirements to qualify for professional licensure in New York and certain other states. The program places students in supervised field experiences within New York.

If you are interested in having a placement or gaining licensure in a state other than New York, please contact Alan Turry. Graduates seeking licensure outside of New York may learn about licensure requirements in other states and US territories below.

Professional Licensure Disclosure