Best College Orchestra

College Majors Music Major
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The question here is a unclear. Does the OP mean which college/university orchestra is the best (or which ones are good) or which conservatory has the best orchestra (and that question could be further refined to “which conservatory has the best orchestra for the purposes of students who wish to go onto to orchestral careers?”) These are very different questions. Folks on the Music Majors forum are more inclined to be able to answer the second two questions.

Also, for the first question, “best” is a problematic term, as it could mean many things. ClarinetDad, the OP, has posted a bunch of reviews of conservatory orchestras. This suggests he is trying to get us to compare conservatory orchestras. He might not realize, for example, that the Curtis Orch is a static ensemble (consistently the same players, more or less, because the school is so small.) But the Juilliard Orchestra is not a static configuration-- students are assigned to orchestra cycles and the composition of the orchestra is never the same from one cycle to the next. There really is no “Juilliard Orchestra”–it is a constantly changing ensemble. So it’s really apples-to-oranges. Of course an orch like Curtis’ will result in a tighter ensemble because they play together more. But Juilliard’s system offers a different kind of advantage: students get a wider range of experience.

As for orchestras in regular colleges, even if you could settle on what is meant by “best”, it would be hard to do a comparison with any kind of credibility or objectivity. A better question might be, what non-conservatory colleges/universities have good extracurricular orchestra programs.

As for conservatory orchestras, my understanding is that Rice and CIM are among the top programs for students who want orchestral jobs. And even so, my daughter’s friends, at other conservatories, are winning orchestra jobs right and left.

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Once again the question is very clear which are the best college orchestras?

People have suggested Rice, CIM, Juilliard, Curtis, Colburn, Eastman, and Yale so far. Plus UNT, Indianaand a few others.

What about USC, FSU, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt, MSM, SFC, st Olaf, and other top schools - any impressions on their orchestras?

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I don’t know how it compares to others, but the Yale Symphony Orchestra is quite good. Indeed, it’s celebrating its 50th Anniversary on April 21 with a concert at Carnegie Hall (accompanied by the Yale Glee Club, of which my daughter is a member). I’m biased, of course.

However, if I knew a kid who was strongly interested in a career as an orchestral performer, I’m not sure I’d encourage him to go to Yale as an undergraduate. There is no performance track in the undergraduate music major. I’m pretty sure undergraduates cannot play in the Music School orchestra. I am aware of a number of excellent performers who left Yale to transfer to music conservatories because of these factors. I think Yale is great for excellent musicians who aren’t interested in a performance career but who still want to play in a very good ensemble. (My son was a music major at Yale, but as a composer–for that, it was quite good.)

I think one problem with answering the OP’s question is that not too many people have heard a lot of university orchestras play. I suppose you could look for a bunch of them on YouTube. I’ve only seen a couple live, and they all seemed pretty good to me.

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And just to expand on this a bit more, let’s imagine (based on OP’s name) that a young clarinetist who is interested in a performance career enrolls as a freshman at Yale. The YSO has four clarinets and one alternate. Will our freshman get into the YSO his first year? Maybe, but not if those other players are better, even if they aren’t music majors at all. There is no preference for music majors, and there is no mechanism in the Music Department for getting performers into ensembles (as far as I know, anyway). That player could spend a year or two in the Concert Band–which is also quite good, but it doesn’t have a lot of people who are likely to become professional performers. At a conservatory, as somebody described above, there is likely to be a mechanism for advancing instrumentalists. Yale doesn’t have this on the undergraduate level.

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@ClarinetDad16, a lot of people are viewing this question as a sincere fact gathering mission on your part that may influence a college decision, and hence are offering a lot nuance along the lines of “depends what you’re looking for”. Is it such a fact gathering mission, or is it more in the spirit of some of your recent threads like “What makes a college popular?” that seem to be simply intended to get a discussion going?

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@rayrick -with input from the huge knowledge base here on CC this can be a valuable resource for many students seeking to play in a top college orchestra.

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I think “What’s the best college orchestra to play in?” may be a very different question from “What’s the best college orchestra?” And I suggested before, even the first question may have a different answer depending on what the student’s goals are.

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@Hunt - I am very familiar with the music program at Yale. And I suggested the YSO is one of the best college orchestras.

Some of the best Masters programs in music performance have strong interest in kids with diverse backgrounds like Yale or Harvard, etc. with extraordinary talent who then choose to pursue a music career and use the masters program to get them there.

That being said it takes an extraordinary kid to do well at Yale and not have a large amount of time to dedicate to music. Regardless the YSO is truly excellent.

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@ClarinetDad16, that’s basically what I was trying to say (not very well, apparently) – the intent of your post is more to generate a list of top orchestras that could serve as a resource for future CC travelers than to figure out how to assess which orchestra program is right for your kid. I just wanted to get that clarification out there, because a number of posters were responding as if you were asking the second question. Might make an interesting parallel thread, actually: “What factors should I consider when assessing which college orchestra program is best for my child?”

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U michigan and Vanderbilt have strong orchestras, in large part because both schools are places where kids wanting to do dual majors go because they have both strong academics and music. MSM and SF conservatory are both good music programs, but from what I know of their orchestras (I have heard MSM orchestras performing, SF conservatory is from reputation so take that fwiw) they aren’t quite the top level, though very good. St/ Olaf’s IMO Is not that strong, I have heard their orchestras perform, and they are not up in the top tier IMO, which is not surprising, because St. Olaf is most strong in their choral program, in terms of instrumental music they aren’t quite as strong as other programs (and this is just my opinion). Keep in mind this doesn’t mean it is a ‘bad’ program, I am not talking a hobby orchestra or whatnot, just simply in terms of a performing ensemble compared to the top ones, it isn’t.

Again, you may want to divide the list between orchestras in programs for and by music students (for example, in schools where they offer performance, they may not allow non majors to get into the orchestra with majors) and those that are there for the general population (the ivies, for example, where they are auditioned, but are not music majors), simply because they are different.

“Some of the best Masters programs in music performance have strong interest in kids with diverse backgrounds like Yale or Harvard, etc. with extraordinary talent who then choose to pursue a music career and use the masters program to get them there.”

While that is true (there are strong music students who go the ivy route for example, play in the school ensembles, have private lessons, often with top teachers, do chamber, then go for an MM), the fact that they come from a diverse background will not get them into a master’s performance program, with MM’s they will get in the same way as the kid who went the conservatory route, it is based on how they audition. The admissions department doesn’t look at a kids CV and say “Oh, wow, they went to Harvard”, it is all based pretty much on the audition and how well the kid is prepared for it. If they were going for a master’s in music theory, or finance, going to Harvard would be a plum, with grad music admissions, doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean that kids shouldn’t think of that route, just saying that when it comes time to get into a master’s program, factors like diversity (ie the kid didn’t go to a conservatory, or dual majored, or went to an Ivy and got a degree in whatever) don’t matter, unless it affects their playing.

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Harvard. Or Haverford. I get them mixed up.

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@musicprnt - great insight thanks. For some of top studios the professor has major input to who (s)he wants to admit for masters. And if they really like kids who have well rounded backgrounds, because that better prepares them to understand what they play, then the professor can pick kids with solid auditions from Yale, Harvard, etc. and they do…

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@clarinetdad16:
Teachers are always the ones who decide who gets into their studios, that is true in undergrad and graduate, and it comes down to the teacher and who they like, and yeah, well roundedness can enter into the picture.However, assuming that people from Harvard or Yale will necessarily be well rounded, as versus let’s say a kid who went to a conservatory or another school, is simplistic, music teachers are not going to see Harvard or Yale on a resume and assume they are better rounded, that will come from actually knowing the kid in question, or from hearing it in their audition. Obviously, being a program with a strong orchestra program can be a facet of well roundedness, but I also have seen kids coming out of Harvard and Yale et al that I doubt you could consider them well rounded, it all depends on the kid in question and who they are, and the "well roundedness’ that a particular school gives them may not be the kind of well roundedness a music teacher is looking for.

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@musicprnt - these are not abstract but actual examples and those kids are highly successful orchestral musicians now

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They are successful orchestra musicians because they took the opportunities they had and ran with them, that is all, there are a lot of kids who are successful musicians who went other routes as well, the same way there are kids who went to Juilliard thinking it was the golden ticket found out the name itself meant very little out there, that is what I am talking about, that the name alone won’t mean much, but rather , in how well prepared the kids are. The thing is, you don’t know if those same kids went to a conservatory,. or went to another school, what would have happened, it is probably more statistically likely they would have done well at another place that prepared them well as either Harvard or Yale would. I am sure there are kids who come out of a Harvard or Yale in music who do well, whose experience there made them well prepared, but it is no more a golden ticket to grad school or careers then going to a conservatory, or going to another program is, and one thing almost anyone in the music world will tell you is that the myth of “name” is out there and strong, in Asia Juilliard especially has godlike status as ‘the place to go’ (friend of my son , who is Korean-American, visited relatives in the middle of nowhere, and all they wanted to talk about was Juilliard…which he doesn’t go to, obviously).Put it this way, the number of successful orchestra musicians, soloists, and so forth who came out of the ivy league is relatively small (off the top of my head, people like Alicia Weilerstein, Yo Yo Ma, Gil and Orly Shaham, went to Ivy league schools, but they also had artists representation and were playing with major orchestras in high school shrug), it is dwarfed by the big conservatories and programs like Rice and some of the others.

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@musicprnt -do you agree it’s valuable for musicians to understand the culture and literature behind a piece of music? A liberal arts major could take coursework as an undergraduate to learn about the time period of many of the great composers. This can add a depth to their playing beyond just the notes on the page.

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Most undergraduate music programs include classes in music history in their core curriculum. You don’t need to be a liberal arts major.

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@ClarinetDad16 :
Of course that kind of thing matters, anyone who knows me would tell you that I don’t like the narrow minded focus of the way some go at music, that all they care about is playing their instrument (This tends to be worse on the solo instruments, like violin and piano). There is a reason they teach music theory and ear training, and it goes beyond it being mechanical understanding of what you are playing. Likewise, music history courses can teach a lot as well, there is no doubt. Understanding the history of when Beethoven was writing, the ideas of the englightenment and the betrayal he felt when Napolean had himself crowned emperor (Beethoven had dedicated the Eroica to him originally), all play into the music, my biggest complaint is that music instruction often emphasizes the mechanical over the human.

That said, it depends on the student.Sure, a kid could take liberal arts classes in European history centering on the Baroque period, or the 18th or 19th century, and get an understanding of the cultural currents, that for example, Baroque music, especially Bach’s, were based on the music of the dances popular at the time, or the religious impact on music, how the Catholic Church’s idea of church music versus the protestant one fundamentally altered the path of music in the countries involved, and so forth. That said, conservatory students can take courses that cover that, as can a student who went to another school that had a music program, while the kid who goes to Harvard, plays music, but spends his time taking whatever the easiest core courses are to get by, and then majors in finance or economics, is not going to be any better prepared, it simply depends on the student. A lot of kids in music performance programs hate things like music theory and ear training and music history and have no curiousity about the music itself, I would argue that a large percent of kids fall into that category, whereas there are a smaller group of kids who love the music itself and love that kind of thing , my son is one of that type, and that type of kid will do well with understanding music wherever they went, because they care about, whereas a kid who doesn’t care about those things whether they go to Harvard or Yale or pipsqueak state won’t get much out of it shrug. What I was trying to say is the school itself means little, while Harvard and Yale offer some great classes in the arts and history and so forth, the kid still has to reach out and take them…

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The National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO-USA) is the best youth orchestra in this country, hands-down, college or high school.

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alfawarlord, that’s a mighty confident statement.