<p>My S is a Junior in HS. He really wants to major in composition, however we are starting to wonder if he should wait until his grad degree for composition and do for a different music discipline as an undergrad. Or a possibly double major with composition as an undergrad. (Then again maybe not.) Anyway, his instruments are piano and clarinet. </p>
<p>I have noticed very little clarinets on this board and so far no reported scholarships for clarinetists this year. Not sure what to make of it. He is considering preparing to audition on both instruments in order to see which one might get him closer to his goal. - and of course scholarship money will be a big consideration.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about this, but I do know that there is a HS clarinetist somewhere who is going to receive a significant scholarship for Frost, for 4 years, commencing Fall 2011 - with their Stamps Woodwinds Quintet ensemble… (full tuition, fees, room and board)</p>
<p>I know that the Stamps family gives substantial scholarships to a number of schools for academics; Frost is the only school (to my knowledge) where they specifically award musicians. At their site, they indicate that some of their scholarships at UMichigan may go to students at the music school, but they are not ‘ear-marked’ specifically for music students, as they do at Frost.</p>
<p>mom2winds, Scholarships vary widely from school to school. Some will offer specific music scholarships, some some college/academic scholarships. Some schools offer financial aid only, no merit scholarships. So your best bet is to narrow down your choice of schools and do your research on scholarship opportunities for each school. If you have a list of schools, I can possibly give you advice based on our experience last year with a son auditioning on clarinet.</p>
<p>I have never heard that there are fewer or smaller scholarships for clarinet. My D did get a small scholarship at one of the 3 schools that accepted her for music, but our situation is different in that 1) We do not qualify for need 2) her academics were not super strong, which was a big factor even for music merit.
You might consider posting on the Clarinet BBoard but have your S do it or don’t say you are a parent as a few of them over there can be a bit snarky.</p>
<p>This is a little off track. My apologies. My son also wants to major in composition and either double major in cello performance or at least a cello focus. Not so easy to do both at many schools. Just curious what schools you have found where you can do both?</p>
<p>I would imagine there are scholarships for performance on all instruments at schools of music - it’s more dependent on the quality of the applicant than the instrument. For instance, Bard Conservatory offers scholarships up to full tuition for five years for all instruments, plus composition. Then financial aid on top of that, if needed.</p>
<p>@cellocompmom I imagine many schools would allow one to double major in composition and cello - but he would have to apply and audition for each discipline.</p>
<p>The way composition (and every non-performance major works) where I go to school (Eastman) is that you have your composition major, and in addition to that you are required to have a primary instrument in which you will have lessons and play in school ensembles and chamber groups. However, for piano primaries (what we call non-performance majors) are not allowed to study with the big name professors, like Antonova, True, Snyder etc… In fact, I know of a story where a student added an education track to their degree, and their teacher actually threw her out of the studio. </p>
<p>However, for Clarinet, non-performance majors get to study with either one of the clarinet teachers (Ken Grant, one of the clarinet, is a certifiable genius. Possibly my favorite person at this school) The same goes for cello.</p>
<p>Thanks. We looked at Hartt. I had assumed you could double major everywhere as well but we are learning at many schools you cannot simply because it is so much work. At NEC after first year you can apply for a double but it is not a given. I have found you have to dig pretty deep for the answers to this question. Information is not on most websites. Just wondered if anybody already knew where else a double in comp and performance was an option.</p>
<p>First and foremost I am glad to read that no one sees any reason for there to be less scholarship opportunities for clarinetists. It takes a lot of work to prepare for the auditions…now we are thinking about preparing for two instruments and a portfolio for composition. Somehow I wonder if it will all happen - well, you never know.</p>
<p>Finding the right school with the right program(s) for him is going to be tricky. I think I’ve got a lot of homework to do!</p>
<p>As always lots of good advice and sage words of wisdom. Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>My son recieved scholarship offers from 3 of the 4 colleges he applied at. The first two scholarships were fairly large, the last offer was fairly small. We sent a letter to the school that offered him the smallest scholarship, requesting an time extention of the offer, and explained that he was having a hard time making his decision. We also included copies of the other two scholarship offers - hoping that the college would increase it’s offer a little.</p>
<p>Anyhow, the applied music professor at the school we were trying to negotiate with emailed my son a few days ago, telling him a bunch of reasons why he should choose that school. He also said that he had recieved “the largest scholarship offered for his instrument”. I could read between the lines and assume that different amounts were offered for different instruments since he said “for your instrument”.</p>
<p>Personally, I am a little befuddled by this as we had been told that the college was trying to increase the number of students that played my son’s instrument “because that instrument is needed in almost all of the ensembles”. I would have expected them to have offered larger scholarships to attract more students, but maybe they just offered all accepted students of his instrument scholarships, rather than offering a few students large scholarships.</p>
<p>Anyhow, like every other poster, I would assume that there would be scholarships for all instruments, but it is very possible that the amount of scholarship money may depend on the need for the instrument.</p>
<p>I do think there are different scholarship amounts for different instruments. It is probably a function of how many of a particular instrument the a school needs to balance their ensembles and the number of applicants they have for each instrument and THE TALENT OF THE APPLICANT. As the mother of an oboist, I am happy that they put such a high priority on balancing the ensembles. As a mother of the clarinetist I wish it was strictly talent based. </p>
<p>I guess it was just surprised to see so little clarinet action on this board and no mention of clarinet scholarships. It is a beautiful instrument as is an important voice in ensembles - not to say other instruments are not!</p>
<p>I think this is another of those things that varies by school. Some schools have to work harder than others to fill spaces for the less popular instruments, so they routinely offer oboe players a good bit more in scholarship money than clarinet players. Some schools want to attract the best possible cohort and are confident that they will have all the violas, contrabassoons and English horns that they need, so they give out scholarships that are based primarily on talent. Many schools combine the two approaches and will give a bit extra to instruments that happen to be in particular demand that year, but usually not a tremendous difference unless they get an unusually talented applicant who happens to fill a much-needed niche.</p>
<p>Given the sample size we have here and the reluctance of some people to share financial information like scholarship amounts, I do not think you can generalize based on the scholarship amounts offered. We have only seven different screen names reporting clarinet acceptances and I would only expect to see two or three of that number reporting scholarships based on the overall ratio. Not getting those two or three is certainly within tolerable limits of statistical uncertainty.</p>
<p>I understand what you are saying BassDad, and I agree. We are an unscientific sampling here and in addition there are probably a good number who don’t make the the financial info public. But it also seems like there aren’t a lot (enough) of clarinets on this board, in general - many more flutes (and I love flutes - my D plays the flute too!). Maybe clarinetists (and their parents) don’t post a lot on bulletin boards. Maybe all the clarinet scholarships are going to those clarinetists who don’t post on CC. Yeah, that must be it.</p>
<p>Oh don’t worry mum2winds, we clarinetists are out here. I haven’t heard of specific instruments getting more or less financial aid at the very top tier of schools. I find it quite possible/probable that at less competitive schools might offer scholarships to certain instruments to attract bassoons/horns etc, whereas there is more likely to be a surplus of clarinetists.</p>
<p>I know how you feel, mom2. We only have a couple of double bassists this year and an orchestra usually has at least as many of them as clarinet and flute players put together. Those two seem to have done pretty well with scholarship money, however, each reporting four scholarship offers. Crazy things can happen when you try to derive trends from a small number of self-selected individuals.</p>
<p>Yup! The posters here (or the kids of the posters) would make one lopsided sounding orchestra or wind ensemble - or any other ensemble for that matter.</p>
<p>DD plays clarinet and received a music scholarship and a merit scholarship from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. We loved the school, the city (sibling goes to UPitt) and the program, but she decided to stay a little closer to home in NJ.</p>