The one-year M.A. program provides an opportunity for students to engage in beginning graduate study without making a multi-year commitment. Students are given the opportunity to have their compositions performed and recorded on the graduate student composers concert series New Music Brandeis. They may also have their compositions read by the Lydian String Quartet, whose members are Professors of the Practice in the music department, and by ensembles-in-residence that are invited to Brandeis by the music department. The Slosberg Music Center houses the Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio (BEAMS) where composers can work with analog and digital equipment. There is also an extensive collection of period instruments including two harpsichords and an historic Viennese fortepiano, which are kept in the Jencks Early Music Room.