Hey everyone!
I’m a junior in high school this year and I just joined CC a few minutes ago. I was wondering if anyone could tell me some good safety/target/reach schools for me for viola performance based on the following information:
I’ve been playing viola for about 6 and a half years
I’m a member of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (there are multiple levels and I’m currently in the 2nd highest one)
I’ve been getting all-state recs (I live in Massachusetts) since freshman year but I’ve never made it into all state (I had a bad audition this year and missed it by 2 points)
I’ve been going to music camp for 4 years. It’s not very well known, however. I’ve been assistant principal violist of the orchestra for 2 years and probably this year I’ll be principal because my stand partner for the past 2 years is graduating this spring. I also won a special honor there the summer before freshman year.
I’d prefer colleges in eastern Canada (Ontario, Quebec, etc), Michigan, Ohio, New England, the Pacific Northwest, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and DC
Rita Porfiris at Hartt is an amazing violist and a nurturing teacher who knows how to unlock individual students’ potential.
Unfortunately, in any auditioned program there is no true safety school, so you might want to check into at least one college or university that is an academic/financial match where you would be able to take lessons with a teacher you like and find inspiring.
Do you have a private teacher, and, if so, have you had a chat about which conservatories or colleges might be a good fit? That said, based on your geographic list, a few that come to mind are:
University of Puget Sound (Pacific Northwest)
Shenandoah Conservatory (Virginia)
Catholic University in DC
Duquesne University and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh (which is almost Ohio, Dennison in Ohio
Bard College (not the conservatory-- it’s possible to major in music and study viola seriously without being in the conservatory, almost in New England)
University of Delaware
I don’t know much about schools in Michigan or Canada, and for some reason, New England colleges (other than the obvious conservatories–BU, Boston Conservatory) aren’t popping into my head. But others may chime in.
No way for anyone to know from your list your chances of getting into a conservatory, to be honest it all is going to depend on how well you play individually, things like youth orchestra participation, all states, etc don’t really tell the full story, even knowing what level of rep you are playing doesn’t say as well. Your private teacher should be a source, but if you feel they may not know (and not all do), you may want to schedule an assessment with a teacher at a good program, in the Boston area for viola you have BU, NEC, Boston Conservatory for example, it may be wise to ask a teacher in one of those programs to assess your strengths and weaknesses so you can see what you need to do before pre screen and audition season hit. If you could get her (and I have no way of knowing if she would be willing to do an assessment) Kim Kashkasian or Martha Katz are top level teachers at NEC for example, or the other programs have teachers who know what is expected of people auditioning. The other thing to keep in mind is that the audition is not scientific, someone seemingly who is a great player may not get in, someone who seems to be at a different level gets in. The other thing to keep in mind is the studio, you might be able to get into school A with teacher b, but if you applied to the studio of teacher a, who is the teacher everyone wants to study with, you may not get in (in other words, music school auditions are generally a two step process, getting past the audition and having a teacher want you in their studio). You could have a school whose level is easier than let’s say a Juilliard, but they have a teacher that is considered the best, so it could be a ‘safety’ in terms of average playing level but with that teacher would be as difficult as getting into the ‘tough’ program.
My advice, fwiw:
1)Talk to your teacher, get an outside assessment if you want confirmation, about where you are and where you can reasonably be for pre screen/audition season.
2)From your teacher and others, get an idea of teachers at a range of schools who might be good. The reach schools likely will be the top music schools, the high to extremely competitive schools, like the Juilliard, NEC, CIM, Rice, U Mich, et al (simply because they are all extremely competitive), then you might have schools considered ‘second tier’ (which I am not going to mention, because my list might not be the same as others), then there might be for example places where you can get in academically but they offer music lessons and such to their students (for example, the ivy league schools generally have strong music programs for their students even though they don’t offer performance degrees, pay for lessons, etc)…so you will have options.
Again, as they say, the best way to start putting together a roadmap is to know where you are now, and your teacher is probably the first place to start:)
Can I jump in on this?
I’m a double degree/double major student. These are the schools I’ve been accepted to:
Eastman - George Taylor/Philip Ying/Masumi Per Rostad
Vanderbilt - Kathryn Plummer
Northwestern - Helen Callus
I’m pretty sure of where I want to study (NU with Callus), but I thought I’d get some feedback on these names. Which ones sound familiar to you people?
To OP, the two schools I really regret not applying to are NEC (Kashkashian/Katz) and NYU (Ritscher). NEC has the strongest viola faculty of any school I can think of, and Ritscher from NYU is pretty well known as well. Those are two options I strongly recommend you consider.
@iamcocoapuffs - Congrats on your acceptances! I don’t think that anyone here is going to give you any advice on which school/teacher you should choose because that is a very individual decision and it’s not considered “good form” to discuss teachers in an open forum.
We also have no way of knowing if the OP is the same level as you, so while you those schools may be a great fit for you, they may or may not be appropriate for him/her.
Oh, thanks for informing me of that. I didn’t know that before.
All the teachers you mentioned and programs are high level programs and the teachers are all pretty high level as far as I know. As Mezzo’sMama said, the specifics of the teachers should be discussed privately, a lot of it is going to come down to what works with you as a student, they all have different approaches to teaching I would bet, and it is going to be what works for you.
And entirely different financial packages, I’m guessing.