Major areas of study include vocal, strings, guitar, piano, wind or percussion instruments, and music synthesis. There are also extensive elective classes in jazz studies, as well as composition, opera workshop, and sound recording and engineering.

The BTWHSPVA Music Department has received national recognition by winning more awards than any other school in Downbeat Magazine's "deebee" awards, over 100 at this writing. Music ensembles have made ten appearances at the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference. Four music students have been named finalists in the National Arts Recognition and Talent Search in Miami. Students have placed twenty-five times in all-state competitions for choir, band, and orchestra.

Students were featured performers at the 42nd Opera Assocation Conference and a vocal senior was selected to sing with the Dallas Opera Chorus. In 1995 the choir was honored with an invitation for forty students to appear in concert at Carnegie Hall. The Jazz Vocal Ensemble, in addition to winning Downbeat awards, won second place at the Jazz Festival in the Monterey, California High School Competition, 1999 and 2001. The Jazz Combo won the Combo division award in 2001 and in 2002, also at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

The department has produced 19 albums of jazz and classical music, and the twentieth anniversary album (a collection of three CD's of the most popular selections) has been released in conjunction with the twentieth birthday celebration at the Meyerson Symphony Concert, May 1998.