Colleges with good Music programs - Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music

This was suggested to us, but my daughter’s violin teacher has not heard of it. Anyone have an opinion or experience with strings program there?

I had never heard of it either, but my son, who goes to a High School for the Arts gets mail from them ALL. THE. TIME. So his name somehow got on their radar. But because it has the word “conservatory” in it, my kid is not interested :frowning: But, I have HEARD of it.

My D took lessons with their conservatory outreach program when she was a kid - both for violin and piano and then theory composition courses with one of the graduate students. Growing up in that area, it was a popular choice. The grads I know personally though were music theater and voice majors so can’t speak to their strings program.

No opinion on the strings program, but we toured it (crazy 5 schools, 5 days whirlwind midwest trip). They are well known for MT, not as much for classical performance.

Our impression (YMMV) was that it felt like a high school vs. a true university - not sure why, but maybe because it was small? Only one percussion professor so that was the other reason we nixed it. If you are in the area (and/or touring Oberlin or CIM) it’s worth a stop to see if you like the strings professor(s) as it’s not demanding academically to get into and it seems like a fair amount of performance opportunities.

I was struck by Post #1. My step-child got both literature and phone calls, unsolicited despite indicating no interest. We never did learn how Stepkids name was picked up, probably through youth orchestra affiliation or competition participation. Correspondence only stopped after Stepkid told a Baldwin Wallace student caller (unintentially rudely) that SKid had no interest in the school, had never had an interest and had never requested any info. That was over 10 years ago - apparently the recruiting tactics have not changed!

I have heard of BW for music theater. I looked at the string faculty online - surprised to see an adjunct faculty member that I knew when he was a high schooler. No idea of quality of his or any other teaching at the school.

Similar situation to Lendlees. D’s voice teacher has a former student attending for MT and she loves the school, so we stopped by after visiting CCM and Oberlin. BW is small and it has more of a commuter campus feel but we don’t regret visiting, just helped D narrow down her search and get a sense of the type of school she might like.

Thank you for your comments all! Yes, my daughter and husband will be touring CIM and Oberlin so may stop by B-W also.