The Simpson College Department of Music trains professional musicians. It has received full accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Music since 1947. It offers a rigorous academic music program with 13 full-time faculty and 17 part-time affiliate teachers, and confers the Bachelor of Music degree in Performance and Music Education and the Bachelor of Arts in Music.

Music at Simpson is widely recognized as offering a premier education for instrumental, vocal, and piano students. Simpson develops the unique gifts of each student through a combination of one-to-one music instruction, classroom teaching, and countless performance opportunities.

We offer programs that prepare students for performing careers, train music teachers, and lay the groundwork for graduate studies in performance, conducting, stage direction, musicology, music education, jazz studies, and arts administration. Our alumni can be found in all of these areas at the highest levels of the profession. Aspects of the program have been cited as outstanding by U.S. News and World Report and the program in voice as exceptional by the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

Simpson College is the performing home of the Des Moines Metro Opera, with which it enjoys an historic, close partnership. It provides Simpson students with the invaluable opportunity to experience professional opera on their doorstep, and to serve as interns and production staff in the summer opera festival. Many singers from Simpson have taken part in the DMMO Apprenticeship Program, an opportunity afforded usually to only the most talented graduate students and young professional singers from all over the United States.