<p>Hi.<br>
I've been researching CUNY colleges, in particular City College, Hunter College, and Brooklyn College to see if they have a music degree program. They seem to have them, but I wanted to know if anybody has any experience with the music majors there, or if anyone had even heard of the music degree experience at these schools is like. I'm also interested in auditions. Thanks.</p>
<p>I do not know about undergraduate CUNY music programs. The Graduate Center has a very good graduate composition program.</p>
<p>Specifically, it will depend on your instrument and which campus has the best teacher for you for that instrument.</p>
<p>But more generally speaking, Brooklyn and Queens tend to have pretty good musicians. Brooklyn College is the only CUNY I believe that has a “music school” or conservatory housed in the school.</p>
<p>City College is very popular among jazz musicians.</p>
<p>The CUNY Graduate Center has a solid reputation for its PhD programs in ethno/musicology and (albeit conservative) music theory. It has an active composition program too, but the consortial nature of the campus means that almost all of the composition faculty have their home assignments in the other campuses, so any reputation there probably speaks more of that teacher/campus than the GC per se. (For the aforementioned academic disciplines, none of the other campuses offer PhDs, so that makes the GC really the only place to be for advanced academic study.) It also has a DMA program in performance.</p>
<p>Queens college has the Copeland School of Music, which is fairly well regarded, if overshadowed by being surrounded by other music programs. I agree with another poster, of the CUNY schools Queens and Brooklyn are the two that have the strongest programs in music performance from what I know.</p>
<p>I always hear about CUNY Queens for both under grad and graduate…(graduate for Jazz especially)…City college for all type of musicians…even popular music…I know nothing of brooklyn college…In general though I always hear about alumni from Queens than any of the other CUNY schools, its a heck of alot cheaper than say Manhattan or Julliard as well…but go for those if you can afford!</p>
<p>It also depends what degree you are talking about as well, performance (BM) or BA…</p>
<p>Queens and Brooklyn both have a decent reputation as music schools and some of the teachers there teach at the better known music schools like Mannes and so forth…so you prob could find a good teacher at either place I suspect. The difference will be in the average student (and I am talking classical here, I don’t know Jazz or other forms of music very well), the level is going to be on average a lot less in those programs then at an MSM,Mannes or Juilliard. As has been talked about ad infinitum on here, there are pros and cons of going to a ‘lower tier’ school that is more affordable but with a good teacher then paying the freight on the higher end programs. </p>
<p>People can and do go to the CUNY schools then go to better schools for grad school, so that may be an option. It probably would be better to indicate what you wanted to study, were you talking instrumental performance, voice, jazz, pop music, composition, or ‘studies’ of music like music history/theory/etc? With instrumental or voice, it is critical, because a school could have a great piano faculty and have an ‘eh’ violin faculty.</p>
I want to know the exact same thing Bartokrules. I live here in NY & can tell you that C.U.N.Y. schools are way cheaper than S.U.N.Y. schools. S.U.N.Y. Purchase is by far the best school around here for there Music program bro. But out of the C.U.N.Y. schools like you aked about, I know Brooklyn College as a Grammy award winner Directing there Conservatory, but I am going to City College because Modern Jazz began in Harlem & that is where City College is & at City College they do have very accomplish professors there as well. I totally would illiminate Hunter College out of the picture totally.