Harp in college but not music major

College Search & Selection
1

Hi! My dd is a current 10th grader, veeeeery serious student with all the grades and scores and stats.

She plays the harp (7+ years, has been in a number of orchestras, solos, certification, etc.). We’re looking for colleges where she can potentially play in the orchestra without majoring in music / would not be in the conservatory, etc.

She is a math, comp sci, math, sci, math, languages, math young woman. Likely to major straight up in math, but tbd.

She has been taught harp in the French method.

So, the ideal college for her: has an orchestra, allows non majors to play, might be thrilled to have a harpist or at least tolerate, French methodology — top school more STEM / math heavy than liberal arts.

Where could harp be a boon for her application / where she could potentially play in the orchestra? She’s aiming very high.

Thanks in advance. I know this is super specific.

2

Before you proceed too far in screening schools, note that mathematics falls among the core group of fields that comprise the traditional liberal arts.

3

A few things to consider which it sounds as though you may already be aware of:

  1. Schools that have a conservatory with strong music performance majors may limit your non-music-major daughter’s access to playing in the best orchestra. Oberlin comes to mind. Note that they also have an arts & sciences orchestra for non-con majors, but it might not be at the level your daughter wants to play at.

  2. Some excellent schools that don’t have music majors may not have an orchestra at a super high level. So then your daughter will have to weigh if the orchestra is good enough if she finds a school she loves that has a decent but maybe not outstanding orchestra.

With those things in mind, here’s a few schools to look at:
Williams - very strong in math; students can play in the local professional orchestra with a very high level of playing
Amherst - great LAC, great orchestra
Brown - excellent orchestra and great college
Vassar - strong music program and strong LAC (not sure about math specifically)
Pomona - strong orchestra and strong LAC. Note that a student in any of the 5 Claremont Colleges can audition for both the strong Pomona orchestra or the less intense orchestra affiliated with the other 4 schools (Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Claremont McKenna)

A less intense academic school with a very strong orchestra is Lawrence. They have a conservatory, but all Lawrence students can audition, and many non-con kids play in their orchestra.

Many LACs have an orchestra and your daughter may get a small admissions boost if a particular school is looking for a harpist… or maybe not. It might depend if they already have a harpist or even a local “ringer” who plays harp for them year after year. Maybe look at Wellesley (joint orchestra with Brandeis), Bryn Mawr (joint orchestra with Haverford - very strong math program), or Smith.

Check out the board for music majors for more info. They have posters who have written on this topic for non-music majors.

4

So helpful, thank you!!

I’ll be sure to check out the board for music majors, too.

We’re heading out east for a last minute Thanksgiving trip, so I’m seeing if there are any more campuses we should try to swing by while we’re there…

5

If LACs might be an option, note that Eastern schools such as Haverford, Hamilton, Bowdoin and Bryn Mawr appear in a Princeton Review survey, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors.”

6

Lehigh and St. Olaf might also be worth a look.

7

I should correct reply #4. The description should have been “Princeton Review sampling.”

8

@calimamaz, I would second @Springbird’s recommendation of Williams. Outstanding math program and overall excellent sciences and CS.

Williams has a very strong music program offering many performance opportunities for non-majors, among their two orchestras and multiple ensembles. Double majoring is fairly easy at Williams, with the math+music combination being quite common.

I’d suggest that your daughter contact Elizabeth Morse, “principal harpist of the Berkshire Symphony and Artist Associate in Harp at Williams College” for more harp-specific questions. Or, if you visit, try to meet on campus.

https://music.williams.edu/profile/em2/

9

When your daughter is in the spring of junior year or fall of senior year, I would recommend that she contact the orchestra conductor of the schools she is interested in. If she were playing a more portable instrument, I would suggest that she ask to meet with them and play for them. Not sure how this would work with the harp, though, so it might be better in this case to send some good video recordings of her playing to the conductor.

Meeting the conductor can be helpful, though, even if she can’t play live for them. They might invite her to observe an orchestra rehearsal so she can see them in action. This will give her a chance to see if the orchestra looks like a match for her and if she likes the vibe of the ensemble and the conductor.

Be sure to peruse YouTube for performances from specific schools, or at least the school website to see what their standard repertoire is.

10

You may want to read about Hamilton’s principal harp instructor, who began her career in France:

https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/our-faculty/directory/faculty-detail/ursula-kwasnicka

11

@calimamaz Your daughter needs to meet with the harp instructor if she wants to continue harp on a college level while not majoring in harp. My daughter is a harpist and this was a big issue for her. She wanted a school with STEM (meteorology) program where she could continue to grow as a harpist. She didn’t want to be stuck in a university orchestra without specific harp instruction and she needed to make sure she "clicked* with the harp teacher, very few school have multiple harp instructors! She should request a trial lesson from the harp teacher.

Many schools require harpists to major in music and or play in “x” number of orchestras or ensembles so that’s something she should consider. Some school have harps you can rent but your DD should be able to use the instructor’s harp for a trial lesson. My daughter would not have felt comfortable auditioning on someone else’s instrument. I’m pretty sure the Harp Column magazine publishes an article every few years about college harp programs, they list the number of harp owned by the school the size of the harp studio and other details.

My DD ended up at OU and loves her harp college teacher and the flexibility she has been allowed. She learned mostly Salzedo but ended up with a college teacher that was mostly Grandjany but they have been able to work well together despite minor differences in technique. I can not stress enough the importance of a trial lesson! Your daughter might also ask for contact info for other students in college’s harp studio to ask about their personal experiences.

Other than OU, my daughter considered the University of Miami (FL). UT Austin has a good harp program too.

12

If she doesn’t care about continuing harp instruction, she can go just about anywhere that doesn’t have a harp program and play in their orchestra. DD has a friend from her high school harp program that played harp at Harvard. I’ve have never heard of a conductor that cared one iota about the harpist’s technique as long as she can play the music on the level of the orchestra.

13

Here you go, just find the STEM program you like and plug that college into the form to find out about their harp program.

https://harpcolumn.com/collegeharpprograms

you can then google the harp teacher to find out more about their instructional style.

14

Your daughter’s profile says St. Olaf to me. In addition to having top-notch music that is a huge component of the campus culture (without a separate conservatory), they are also known for particular strength in math and CS.

Are you familiar with this website, that profiles colleges specifically for harp opportunities? https://harpcolumn.com/collegeharpprograms/listing/st-olaf-college (Caveat: the filters for searching colleges don’t seem to work properly - St. Olaf’s profile, for example, clearly states that lessons are offered for non-majors, but checking that search box only brings up 7 schools, not including St. Olaf. So, i wouldn’t bother trying to generate lists with the filters, but you can definitely look up individual schools that you’re interested in.)

The quality of math/CS education at St. Olaf rivals the top-tier universities, unless she is the kind of student who will need access to extensive graduate-level coursework while still an undergrad. If she is looking for a top-tier university that also has conservatory-level music instruction with harp instruction available to non-majors, look at URochester/Eastman, Vanderbilt/Blair, Northwestern/Bienen, Hopkins/Peabody, Rice/Shepherd.

University of Richmond is also very strong in music as well as academics; it’s a good place for serious non-conservatory musicians - in addition to instruction and ensembles for non-majors, they have competitive merit scholarships for performing arts; my recollection from a friend’s daughter who was offered a scholarship is that scholarship recipients have to minor in their performing arts discipline but can major in anything they like.

15

Amherst and Princeton both have excellent student orchestras.

16

Consider Case Western (next door to the Cleveland Institute of Music).

At Case, even as a STEM student, she could study what she wanted and still take classes or private lessons arranged through Case at CIM without being a major, or she could declare as a minor.

17

Hi all! Loving this forum so much!

Totally agree, vibe of the orchestra is super important. She’s been in certain orchestras where the vibe just wasn’t there harp wise - and that was the “break it.” It can be especially hard with harp, frankly.

Also “clicking” or not with the harp instructor is important. Though her local instructor loves her like a daughter and would continue lessons via facetime or some such. So the point re: she can join the orchestra lots of places if she doesn’t need instruction is a goooood point. (And Harvard is her first choice.)

Honestly her top priority is academics. The harp / orchestra component is a side dish, albeit an important one.

One tricky component is that we may be living in Europe for her 11th and possibly 12th grades. So I’m trying to make the most out of this very last minute 10th grade East Coast visit over Thanksgiving timeframe. Tours we could have waited on might need to happen sooner because, well, we’re still in the country.

Again, she’s in 10th grade now. At Stanford Online High School. 4.0+ unweighted. Top scores.

So - week prior to Thanksgiving - we’re heading to Boston for about a week. Right now she’s touring Harvard and MIT, has events via MIT and Stanford while there. Plenty of time in Boston - maybe we look at Wellesley or Brandeis?

We’re heading north to Maine to visit dear family friends for the actual holiday. I’m thinking maybe Bowdoin?

Then heading south to Connecticut so both my kids can look at Choate (I’m an alum) with a day or two down that direction. That’s of course a completely different discussion.

Honestly my main goal is after she sees Choate and falls in love with it, I need to be able to say: “yes but you can have a similar experience in college in just a couple of years at awesome place X, Y, or Z. In the meantime come to EU with us for a year or two.”

Yale is super close to Choate, so that’s an easy add on. Do we try to squeeze in a Smith or Amherst or Williams? Or?..

Thanks again, all. We certainly appreciate it over here in our household.

18

Oh and very good point re: possibly needing access to graduate level math while in undergrad. Hadn’t though of that - but it could be an issue because she’ll start undergrad level as a senior in HS. (Multivariable Calc via Stanford.) She’ll have at least a few math major req.s done by the time she starts as a Frosh.

19

How about Hopkins/Peabody?

Harp instructors:
Ruth Inglefield, Jasmine Hogan
Number of harp students enrolled in 2017-2018
8
Lessons available for non-majors?
Yes
Harp minor offered?
Yes
Number of school harps:
12
Space provided for personal harps?
Yes

20

If your daughter completes multivariable calculus as a high school student, then she’d begin college with linear algebra. With this progression, she’d be fine at an LAC with a strong math department.