Start Your Musical Journey at VHCC
Welcome to the vibrant world of music at Virginia Highlands Community College!
Whether you're an aspiring professional looking to transfer to a four-year university, aiming to develop career-ready skills, or simply eager to deepen your musical knowledge and connect with fellow enthusiasts, VHCC offers the perfect foundation. Learn from dedicated, highly qualified faculty in a supportive environment designed to help your musical talent flourish.
Our Music Programs
Explore the diverse pathways VHCC offers to help you achieve your musical and academic goals.
If you can see yourself working as a musician, the Applied Music CSC is for you! This focused one-year program is designed to provide essential music skills for immediate application or to enhance your talents for further study. You will gain knowledge of music history, composition and performance, both instrumental and vocal.
Discover your musical voice! Our Associate of Arts in Liberal Arts with a Major in Music offers a comprehensive two-year degree with a robust academic and musical foundation, perfectly preparing you for seamless transfer to a bachelor's degree program at a four-year institution. Develop your musical skills while exploring a variety of genres and styles. Whether you dream of performing on stage or pursuing a music-related career, this program provides a solid foundation for your future.
Not ready to commit to a full program? You can enroll in individual music courses in theory, performance, history, and more to explore your interests and develop your skills.
Join Our Community Choir!
Love to sing? Our Community Choir welcomes voices of all levels and is a fantastic way to engage with music and connect with the community. View our latest concert below!
What Can You Do With a Music Degree?
A music education opens doors to a vast array of exciting and unexpected career paths, proving that your passion can lead to a fulfilling profession.
Meet the Music Professor
Ryan D. Whittington, PhD
Assistant Professor of Music
PO Box 828, Abingdon VA 24212
Office: 276-739-2454
rwhittington@vhcc.edu • www.vhcc.edu
Learn from a highly qualified and dedicated instructor, Dr. Ryan Whittington, who brings real-world experience and academic excellence to the classroom. Dr. Whittington holds degrees in Music and German from Wake Forest University, plus an MM and PhD in Musicology from Florida State University. His research interests are in the music of Arnold Schoenberg, relationships of literature and music, and representations of difference and otherness in musical works. Dr. Whittington’s dissertation examined ways composers set songs for the monster Caliban in musical adaptations of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He is the author of “Music to Save an Audience: Two Melodramatic Vampires of 1820 and the Music that Betrays Them,” in All Around Monstrous: Monster Media in their Historical Contexts.