<p>I'm a pianist who played piano for over a decade now, performed with professional orchestra, and competing in international piano competitions. I certainly plan to continue that in college. The problem is that I don't know if music is something I want to do for the rest of my life, so I want the it to be a part of the college, and not conservatories. So, I'm looking for colleges that are not only strong academically, but also strong in the piano department.</p>
<p>I know Oberlin, Uchicago, and Rice are all good colleges with strong piano department; any other colleges that have strong piano departments that are part of the college and not in a conservatory? Thanks!</p>
<p>+! for UChicago. We have a pretty good piano department from what I hear. The faculty is pretty good, and, if you don’t want to study with someone on the UC faculty, they can help you find a teacher in Chicago. A friend of mine studies with a teacher from Curtis who also teaches at another school in Chicago.</p>
<p>U of Wisconsin at Madison (Christopher Taylor), U of Texas at Austin (Anton Nel) both have some great piano faculty. Also look at Northwestern and Stony Brook (Gil Kalish, Christine Dahl). Boston schools are near NEC and other conservatories where you can look for a private teacher. Columbia pays for lessons for their adjunct music instructors, and of course there are lots of conservatories in the area where you might find a private teacher.</p>
<p>Technically, Oberlin’s program IS part of a conservatory. You can go one of three ways there:</p>
<p>The BM in the conservatory, which would give you essentially one course per semester in the college. You may be able to sneak in a second college course once every few semesters without going over the conservatory’s 17 credit per semester limit before $950 per credit tuition surcharges kick in. From your posting, I take it that this is not the option that you want.</p>
<p>The BA only in the college with applied piano lessons taken through the conservatory. The college has a 16 credit hour limit per semester before the surcharge kicks in. This would likely make it impossible to take full hour, 4 credit per semester lessons unless you are willing to pay a lot of extra money for them. It may actually be cheaper in this case to arrange for private, not-for-college-credit lessons with one of the teachers. If you drop the lessons to 2 credits per semester, you may be able to avoid the charges but would then only get half hour lessons each week.</p>
<p>The double degree program for BA and BM degrees. This normally takes five years.</p>
<p>Wow, so I guess Oberlin is out. The problem for me is that I don’t want to go the conservatory route, because if I decide that I don’t want to be a professional musician, then I’m screwed. So, any others that have great piano department, but aren’t in a conservatory?</p>
<p>As BassDad points out, Oberlin allows the option of doing both the conservatory and the college, so you would have an academic degree as well if you went that route. Chicago’s music department is principally academic and its strengths are in theory, ethnomusicology, and composition; the performance program is limited. You might do better at Yale or Harvard or Tufts…Michigan…in terms of finding a group of talented musicians who have gone the academic route (and a few who do a BA/MM option), assuming you have the stats and resume.</p>
<p>zzzhang - are you planning on majoring in music, pursuing a double major or getting a degree in something other than music, with the idea of being very involved in the music program throughout college (i.e. private lessons and maybe some performing, but just not majoring in piano performance?) I am a little uncertain what your goal is. Are you searching for a top tier academic experience, or just a good solid 4 year college with an excellent piano department? Also, do you have any restrictions as far as location or money issues? It would help if we knew just a little more about what your plans are. Thanks!</p>
<p>I think probably the most important factor is a fantastic teacher. If there is one located at or near the college of your choice, you should be in good shape! Ask your piano teacher. You sound like Jon Nakumatsu…he wasn’t positive he wanted a concert career either and majored in German at Stanford. He continued taking lessons from his piano teacher throughout college, won the Van Cliburn and now has a thriving career (and he even taught German in high school for a few years). It’s possible!</p>
<p>violinmom, I really don’t know what I’m gonna do. I would like a college that is excellent in not just music, because there is the possibility that I might decide to major in something else other than music.</p>