A cross-cultural comparative study of organ master’s degree curricula in the United States and South Korea

There are a variety of definitions for the term “curriculum.” According to Su (2012), these range from a set of academic objectives to a set of experiences that include extracurricular activities, learning environments, and cultures. Despite this breadth of definition, however, all agree that curriculum plays a key role in career readiness for students. Though curricula studies of many different academic disciplines exist, there has not been an extensive investigation of graduate organ curricula. There is a need to further explore the ways organ music programs provide students with opportunities necessary to ensure a successful career as a professional organist, as well as an organ educator. Therefore, this comparative study aims to explore curricula of master’s degree organ programs in two countries: the United States of America, and South Korea. Six master’s degree programs are purposefully selected for this study, including Indiana University, University of Kansas, and University of Michigan in the United States, and Ewha Womans University, Korean National University of Arts, and Yonsei University in South Korea. In addition to this curriculum analysis, a survey was conducted to explore what Su defines as curriculum as learning experiences. Although the findings of this study are ungeneralizable due both to the limited number of programs selected for curriculum analysis and the small number of survey responses, they nevertheless provide meaningful discussion points that might reveal similarities and differences in masters’ degree organ music curriculum between these two countries.