<p>Hello Everybody</p>
<p>I am from Brazil and I am finishing my masters degree in composition.</p>
<p>I made some research and talked to teachers and some friends about getting my Doctorate degree in the US or Canada. </p>
<p>These are some universities that they recommended me:</p>
<p>McGill University
University of Montreal
University of California, San Diego
University of Cincinnati</p>
<p>I was hoping to get some feedback from people who actually studied in those universities or from everybody willing to help me out. Also would like to know if there are other schools not listed here that have a good composition department, specially in D.M.A area.</p>
<p>Thank you very much in advance!!!</p>
<p>There are many good schools for a DMA. Shouldn’t you be choosing at this point based on the professors with whom you’d like to study and the style of music which interests you? What are you looking for in a grad school?</p>
<p>OK - I’ll list some more schools anyway - all these are good schools for some composers - none are good for every composer. There are so many schools from which to choose, you need personal reasons to choose one over the other. They have different aesthetics and they are connected to different networks for ultimate career paths…
In addition to the ones originally listed in your post, in no particular order:
Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan, USC, Rice, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UT Austin, CSU Long Beach, Wisconsin, Illinois (Urbana Champaign) UMKC, Minnesota, UNLV, Hartt, Manhattan, MIT, Peabody, Juilliard, NYU, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Univ. of Miami, Rice, CalArts, Mills, Stanford, Iowa… and many more.</p>
<p>I think you get the idea - to narrow down your choice you need more criteria than a ‘good’ DMA program in composition. For one thing - you want one where they’ll want YOU - and give you a full tuition grant plus a stipend for living expenses.</p>
<p>Dear SpiritManager</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your reply.</p>
<p>Let me be more clear.</p>
<p>I was hoping to find a school where the artistic part of the process is also included, not only the research part. And my main focus is “contemporary” (don’t like this term) instrumental music and instumental mixed with eletronic music (tape or automated events).
Also, my research is about “hibridity in concert music”.</p>
<p>I’ve won some composition copetition in my country so that might help me getting full tuition in some universities. I will research more universities that have those aesthetics.</p>
<p>It’s hard to actually search good teachers from my country, since i can only mail them and read their curriculum. It helps to decide, but if someone knows or have had classes with them and have an opinion about their teaching and research ideas, it would be more than welcome!!</p>
<p>Thank you again</p>
<p>I happen to know that Oberlin (undergrad), Harvard (grad), and UC San Diego share an aesthetic, and there is a lot of cross pollination between them, including the area of electroacoustic composition.</p>
<p>Thank you compmom!!!</p>
<p>I was actually hoping to find a place where instumental music is strong. I have more experience in that area, so it would be easyer for me. But I will definetely check out these universities. Actually, my composition teacher told me about UC San Diego. He studiyed there and told me that the composition area is really strong, despite the small campus.</p>
<p>UC San Diego is a huge campus. I think you may have it confused with University of San Diego. However, the composition dept is small and very clear about its aesthetic sensibilities. If you like the professors’ music there, then it would suit you. It isn’t necessary to have a strong performance department at the PhD level to have a strong composition department - the university will find players for you, and the electroacoustic resources can be phenomenal - such as at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Mills & CalArts - none of which have a school of music. (Nor does UC San Diego.)</p>
<p>Another way to research composition departments, asides from the current professors, is by seeing where the young composers you admire studied/study. I recommend reading the biographies of these 60 young composers - who are the next wave of composers in this country: [WQXR</a> - New York’s Classical Music Radio Station](<a href=“WQXR | New York's Classical Music Radio Station”>WQXR | New York's Classical Music Radio Station) You can also listen to samples of their music to get an idea of their aesthetics. You will find they come from a wide variety of schools - although certain ones show up more often than others.</p>