Colburn

College Majors Music Major
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We’re very early in the process (D is finishing 8th grade now, so no conservatory/college visits for us just yet), but it’s probable that D will be looking at studying oboe performance in a conservatory environment. She attended Oboe Workshop at BUTI last year and considered it heaven on earth. She’ll be back this summer for workshop and YAO.

One of the schools that has peaked her interest is Colburn (mainly on the basis of the sound of one of the teachers there, whom we’ll arrange to meet at some point before the application process, which is how the oboe world seems to turn.) We live on the east coast and my mental map tends to center there, so I don’t know much about west coast schools. We’ll get instrument-specific and “what are my chances” advice from her private teacher, who teaches at an east coast conservatory. I thought I’d ask here for impressions about the environment.

Thanks.

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Colburn is interesting, it started out as a community music program (still has that), but not all that long ago created an endowed conservatory that if you get in, is full free ride. It has amazing facilities (you should see their cafeteria), and they are located across the steet from the Disney concert Hall (definitely worth going for the audition just to see that) where the LA Phil plays, and while the area around it used to be pretty gritty, the whole downtown area is gentrifying, it already had when we were there now 3 years ago, I wandered around through the surrounding areas.

The pluses of Colburn are they have some great teachers, they have close ties to the LA Phil, and they do attract high level students, especially given it is total free ride. As a result, it is very competitive to get in there, for obvious reasons. From everything I could tell, it is a really good school.

The downside is that it is so small, I think it is like 75 students if I remember correctly, and that has its own limitations, it limited the orchestra (among other things, as good as the students are, orchestra background may be spotty in some of the students, so the playing level may be variable), and being so small if there are conflicts with other students it is kind of hard to stay away from them (not saying that happens, just saying being small has that issue), and it is likely that there may only be one teacher on your instrument, and if they don’t work well with the student, could be a long 4 years (this is true of any program with few teachers). My son ended up not going (my wallet is still crying lol) because while he liked the teacher at Colburn a lot, he was very new to teaching, and the teacher my son ended up studying with was kind of a dream teacher for him, so he didn’t go there.

I would definitely keep it in mind, there are other great music programs in the LA area (USC is up there as a program, as is UCLA), and don’t assume that great music only happens on the east coast or in the snowbelt:).

You have a lot of time before this becomes ‘real’, but it will pass fast, I can guarantee that, so it isn’t a bad idea to keep your eyes and ears open.

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@musicprnt - Thanks. My daughter asked where your son ended up going.

You bring up a good point about the orchestra, and we’ll definitely time a visit that gives us a chance to hear where they are by the time she’s auditioning. The private teacher will most likely trump the orchestra. The question of whether the financial picture would trump the teacher would be a tough one, indeed!