The Musicology Department of CCOM was established in September, 1956. It is the first musicology department among all the music and arts conservatories in China. Musicology department has formed a relatively integrated teaching system and a research group with the most centralized academic power through fifty years of hard work. The musicology department was approved as the authorized institute for granting master degree in 1982 and the authorized institute for granting doctoral degree in 1988 by Academic Degree Committee of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China.
The musicology department always leads the construction and development of musicological discipline on the aspects of academic subject construction, curriculum, faculty team, and academic research. It is an important teaching and research base of musicological discipline in China. Musicology Department consists of six teaching and research groups (History of Chinese music, Theory of Chinese traditional and folk music, History of Western music, Music Aesthetics, World music theory, and Management of Music Art) and five research studios (multi-media teaching studio, Buddhist music culture research studio, music psychology research studio, laboratory for ethnomusicological research, and World music instruments training center). The certificate issuing body for distance learning of CCOM's Distance Education College is included in the musicology department as well. The curriculum offered by the department has over 80 courses. Some of the theoretical courses are established exclusively among all music conservatories in China. The major courses of the musicology department (include the history of Western music, the history of Chinese music, Chinese traditional and folk music, world music, and music aesthetics) are applied multi-media teaching system. During six decades, the faculty of musicology department makes great efforts on academic research and obtains fruitful achievements. Since it was established in 1950s, the faculty and the department have published books, textbooks, and papers almost 10000 albums. Many academic achievements filled up gaps in the construction of musicology discipline and have been applied by other conservatories.
The first Chair of musicology department was Zhang Hongdao (term of office: 1956-1984); the successive Chairs were Lan Yusong (term of office: 1984-1987), Huang Xiaohe (term of office: 1987-1990); Zhong Zilin (term of office: 1990-1993); Yuan Jingfang (term of office: 1994-2001), Zhang Boyu (term of office: 2001-2015 ) and Zhou Qingqing. The present Chair is An Ping, the secretary of party branch is Wu Xiaoping.
