History of Music education in Sri Lanka dates back to the 1940’s with the establishment of “Rajaye Lalitha Kalaayathanaya”. During past 80 years of Sri Lankan Music and dancing education, the state educational system was able to produce only a handful of well-trained musicians and hundreds of Music teachers.

SLTC being one of the leading semi-state Universities in Sri Lanka, had identified the potentials and the necessity in creating a space for the world standard Music Degree program yet keeping the local identity. SLTC also identified the importance in Music research and its impact on both Music pedagogy and Music Business.

Consequently SOM has become the only alternative academic institution other than the local University Music degree programs offered by state owned institutions which offer a first degree in Music. While being the youngest institution of its caliber, SOM is already being recognized as the institution which offers the most updated and most innovative degree program in the country by the fellow state universities. Therefore SOM believes that it has the soul responsibility to fulfill the required music educational needs of the country.

The objectives of creating such a Music educational program are,

• Establishing a local Institution with global academic capacities, to offer Sri Lankan youth a valid and updated Music education which is recognized both locally and internationally.
• Creating a platform for Music research for both local and international researchers.
• Engendering a world standard Music Composer, an Instrumentalist, a Recording Engineer, a Singer, an Analyst, a critic, a Researcher and an Academic with local cultural and ideological identity.
• Creating a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration for innovation and creation.
• Making SOM the cultural hub in the region of Asia for both local and global musicians, artists, writers, critics and academics to exchange knowledge and to involve and collaborate in a broader scope.
• To offer post graduate programs and higher educational opportunities for both local and international academics in the future.
• Engaging with the local and global Music business with local identities.
• Establishing the most advanced High tech recording studio to facilitate the movie industry in Sri Lanka.
• Making an environment for the local and international professionals to come and share their knowledge and expertise with the new coming artists.
• Making the best environment for the students to mingle with the professionals in the Movie industry, Music industry, Literature, Electronic and Social Media etc.

Strengthen the position of the school to be the most encouraging academic arena in the country for research and development in the field of music.

Collaborative research:

• Invest in and support collaborative research practices across the school, the university, and local and global partners.
• Encourage school members to form and strengthen research ideas and innovations in terms of paper publications and performances.
• Inaugurate a Public Humanities Hub for research and seek parallel support to the SOM research cluster program for researchers in music.
• Develop mechanisms to engage in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary researches within the school, the university and elsewhere, for standard publications in local and international surroundings.
• Increase the collaboration with the other local universities in the field of research and development to fulfill the gap of innovative capacity within the country.
• Being a partner of research programs which are being conducted and monitored by the Cultural ministry of Sri Lanka and other governmental and non-governmental organizations such as UNESCO CULTURAL FUND.

• Encourage a sizeable participation in innovative initiatives, both internally and externally from the school and the university.
• Seek funding to expand the Institute for Future Legislators into a national and international network.
• Pave the way to introduce an arts-based scholarly journal to showcase the importance of music as an art and a discipline as such.
• Continue to encourage and celebrate to expose the impact of SOM in the current and future field of music internally and externally.
• Use the lecture series as innovative skills of written and unwritten theories of music as a study to bridge the academia and the field of music.
• Publish selected research publications as books under SOM.