The composition department is a community that fosters cooperation between its students and faculty. Through once-a-week composition seminars, students and faculty members have the opportunity to discuss each other's music and to hear music by visiting composers. Students take an introductory composition course during their first two semesters and then have three years of individual lessons with faculty composers. This assures a regular, disciplined course of study.

Through regular one-on-one instruction and seminar courses with their peers, graduate students continue to develop their compositional voices through the free exchange and application of ideas.

Essential to any composer's artistic development is the opportunity to hear their music performed.?Hartt provides numerous score calls to its students, with several performance organizations sponsoring student performances. Foot in the Door, a group dedicated to the performance of new chamber music, sponsors concerts of student works each semester. Additionally, students are given the opportunity through the student-run "Public Works" series to have their music performed. Each semester, the Hartt Symphony Orchestra and Hartt Symphonic Band select several student works to read and play during their rehearsal time.?