The faculty at the department of music are engaged in performing and creative activity. Both in  quality and quantity the department makes it's mark on the national and international scene.

Most of the artistic research at the department deal with performing issues. The issues in question could be refining one's excisting practise and developing new forms of musical performance. This could be related to the development of new instruments and technologies, but also dealing with a more traditional genre-based expression. The work often involves interdisciplinary questions that naturally links it to other disciplines within both the humanities and NTNU's more technically related fields. 

Several of our faculty members at the department are artistic directors of an array of festivals.

Artistic research at the department of music can be divided into the categories classical performance, improvisation, music technology and composition, in addition to combinations of these.