<p>Hi,
I know it's late to try and find a school, but are there any less selective schools that have fantastic [classical, not avant garde] composition departments that you would recommend that are in the New England area (CT, RI and mass preferably)?
The one's I'm applying for I suddenly realized are kind of selective [nec, msmny, bc), i mean i knew but recently it hit and got me nervous since i don't have any safeties. On the other hand it might be nice to not just be around muscians and immerse-ment all the time too... If I have to wait a year, which if I don't get in anywhere might happen, but I'll do it but make the best of it.</p>
<p>Oh, also, how much does it decrease my chances if I have no festival/summer program experience in the last 2 or three years (since high school)? In high school, I was selected for a local music festival every year. (by the by I meant I was transfering and not applying in the first post. Went to uconn as an honor student freshmen year, hated the school, transferred first semester and have been going to a community college since to figure what I was doing out)</p>
<p>We need more info before we can recommend anything. Are you only interested in conservatories? If not, what are your grades like? Are you only interested in a BM in Composition, or would you be open to a BA? You say not avant-garde - what do you consider avant-garde? And have you been composing the last few years and do you have recordings, preferably live, of your work?
And, is money an issue?</p>
<p>No, not just conservatories. I only avoided state institutions because I hadn’t heard anything amazing about their comp. dept. My grades are fairly good, A’s and B’s (the b’s last semester were only in my lab classes) with only two C’s over the past 4 semesters (oh poli sci and history). I would prefer a BM over a BA and yes, I’ve written some over the last few years, but no, none of it has been recorded.
I wouldn’t want a program as edgy as Oberlin or anything, because I’d like a strong traditional background (19th century Romantic and sooner) preferably. Some stuff after that interests me and might be worth investigating at some point, but overall I am not a fan of a lot of experimental or atonal works. Financially, if after pursuing all available scholarships/grants I’m short I intend on getting a loan(s) with a good credit cosigner.</p>
<p>Hartt at U. of Hartford, Ithaca, UMass Amherst, Longy perhaps…UMass requires that composers also study an instrument. You could also try Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire, Marlboro. </p>
<p>But to apply anywhere, you need recordings of your work. How are you applying without recordings? Or do you mean you are submitting MIDI’s/Finale versions?</p>
<p>Admissions decisions are pretty much based on the music itself. The advantage of summer programs is that they offer a chance to get music recorded, but the resume aspect of it does not matter that much.</p>
<p>The deadline at conservatories is 12/1. Can you get some good musicians to play some of your music and record it? That would really help your chances anywhere. You would probably have to pay the musicians. (Time is kind of tight, so maybe that is too stressful or not possible, but…)</p>
<p>Then go to a copy place and have your scores bound there, make labels for your CD’s and CD cases, make the whole package look nice :)</p>
<p>Waiting a year would be fine too if it gives you time to write more, study with someone privately (do you study with someone now?), and figure out what you really want to do. A lot of people in the arts do that, and especially when they really want to go to a certain school, and think their chances would be better in a year. Or, apply now, then apply again if you do not get in.</p>
<p>If you do wait a year, you might want to listen to more late 20th century and contemporary composers, just for fun…you might like some of it!</p>
<p>I will look further into those schools, thanks a bunch.</p>
<p>The sites of the schools I’m looking at say you don’t need recordings, it’s just recomended that you submit them. That is good for me since currently I can’t spare a ton of cash and i was planning on submitting at least one piece for full orchestra, which would be many people needing payment. Now that you point it out though, I suppose I’ll look into it some more, but unfortunately I can’t guarantee it’ll happen.
Good to know about the summer programs, thanks.
I don’t study composition with anyone since there isn’t anyone around here I can get to on a regular basis, but there are piano lessons.
I’m gonna try to apply anyways to see what happens. Here’s hoping…</p>
<p>I do like some stuff from contemporary composers, but when you get into stuff like serialism or pieces like the banshee or by Cage etc, I’m not too keen on listening to it, though I can appreciate some of it on a technical basis.</p>
<p>No need to hire an orchestra, if one has not already played your piece. Just use the midi realization. However, it is always best to have a couple of pieces recorded by live musicians. Do you have some chamber works? Even pieces for two instruments. Past threads on this site have suggestions for ways to get musicians to play your pieces, and get them recorded. Do some searches.</p>
<p>I think you have a very narrow and inaccurate view of what you define as “contemporary” music. Cage, Cowell, and serialism are hardly cutting-edge contemporary music! They are yesterday’s news as far as today’s academic composers are concerned.</p>
<p>What do you mean when you say you can appreciate something like The Banshee, on a technical basis, even though you are not keen on listening to it? Because, for me at least, that piece is all about surface aesthetics! So IMHO it would be quite the opposite.</p>
<p>Also, you place serialism in this same boat. Do realize that it has been many many many many decades since completely serial music has been in fashion, and in fact the first traces of serial music are now almost an entire century old? Composing in a serial style today is just about as ‘avant-garde’ or ‘edgy’ or fashionable as composing like Mahler or Strauss!</p>
<p>I am curious about this notion that many young aspiring musicians have of serialism - and they all tend to just simply assume the entire genre to be harsh, discordant, blatant sounding music. (And worse of all, they assume it to be a popular and in-fashion technique amongst serious academic composers.) This is very ill-guided, and in fact many of them have not even really listened to much, if any, real serial music at all! BenComp, have you actually heard any completely serial music? Which ones? (There’s actually not a whole lot of them. The entire Second Viennese school probably produced just a few mere hours of completely serial music combined, ever. Webern’s entire life output was only about one single hour of music. And most of Schoenberg’s best known pieces today are not from his serial stages, but are rather late Romantic.)</p>
<p>If you attend some of the new music recitals by the composers at these schools you have mentioned - such as NEC, MSM, even Oberlin, etc - you’d be surprised at the wealth of the range of expression these composers encompass. You’d be also surprised at the openness everyone has towards all of the different styles out there. Do not discount any school because you think it might be too ‘edgy’ or ‘contemporary’ or ‘avant-garde’, whatever they mean anyways.</p>
<p>p.s. If you can go to a student composers concert at any schools, or get a disc of student works, it helps to check out whether the pieces are all quite different (finding their “own voice” as website rhetoric might put it) or somewhat similar.</p>
<p>p.s. Bencomp, if you can go to a student composers concert at any schools, or get a disc of student works, it helps to check out whether the pieces are all quite different (finding their “own voice” as website rhetoric might put it) or somewhat similar.</p>
<p>When I said that I wasn’t grouping them together in anything more than the category of ‘stuff I don’t like that came out of the twentieth century for what I may consider avant-gaurd in answering the question of what I thought was such.’ I apologize for using the word ‘contemporary’ in such context, for that was indeed a poor word choice.</p>
<p>I just don’t like the idea of serialism and the twelve tone row and rejecting tonality. Anything I’ve heard like that I’ve found to be basically terrible. I know I do not want to write that kind of thing. As far as pieces that are total serial that I’ve heard? Well I don’t know, for I haven’t studied individual pieces of such in depth, so I don’t know which are completely serial. Schoenberg’s Serenade (op. 24) or like Philomel or Three Compositions for Piano by Babbitt are pretty bleh.</p>
<p>I also don’t think the Banshee is a technical piece; I meant I can appreciate certain pieces in the realm of ‘avant-garde’ (in which I also grouped the banshee). An example would be the piece Piano Phase, due to the difficulty and control needed in playing it.</p>
<p>I apologize again for using the word ‘contemporary’ incorrectly.</p>
<p>Hope the lower grade in History isn’t a problem later on, because most schools will have gen ed requirements, and they include ones from the history, english, etc, departments! Just fooling with you BenComp, but also letting you know that you will indeed have to take some of those courses you didn’t do so great in during HS, so be careful what you say in an interview or essay! Good luck to you!</p>
<p>Just a quick add here: any school of music or department of music will provide the “classical” background you want, including Oberlin (which you mention as perhaps not providing such a background. Music history (Western civilization going back to ancient Greece) and theory are taught everywhere. Music majors often also study “world music,” meaning music from other cultures. </p>
<p>When you look at schools, keep an open mind, and know that you may find student compositions at all schools that have atonal qualities, or other qualities that you do not at first like, or that you may consider “avant-garde.” Learning about and appreciating many different styles of composing is an important part of the process of finding your own way, and hopefully is an enjoyable process too.</p>
<p>I’d just like to mention a few actual “contemporary” composers, to give an idea of the kind of music being written in the here and now. These folks are all under 40, so they are a new generation, not Steve Reich or John Adams or Joan Tower or John Corigliano, etc. But these are people who are getting noticed, getting their works performed, getting attention by audiences, concert presenters, orchestras, critics, etc. </p>
<p>And, being 21st century composers, they all have websites:</p>
<p>This list is by no means exhaustive. It’s guidance not gospel, but hopefully it does shed a little more light on the current classical composing scene, so you have an idea of where music currently stands–naturally it’s a bit removed from even the most up-to-date music history textbook, as musicologists generally fear to tread any further than the 1970s, making a passing reference to In C or Grand Pianola Music or Einstein on the Beach and quitting while they’re ahead. So it can be a bit difficult to get a grasp on what’s happening at this moment. In my view, the composers listed above merit greater acquaintance. (It will also help to read in their bios where they went to school). </p>
<p>Wow, that is a great list (N8Ma) and great link (spirit manager) and it should be fun to listen to the samples.</p>
<p>I just listened to David Lang’s “Little Match Girl Passion”. My daughter traveled to NYC to hear this, at the Bang on a Can marathon last spring. It won the 2008 Pulitzer prize.</p>
<p>I grew up reading “The Little Match Girl” and always used to cry at the end. I ended up working with the homeless!</p>
<p>Ben Comp, I hope you like this piece: it is beautiful and sad. </p>
<p>Nico Mulhy studied with John Corigliano I think. My daughter loves his music.</p>
<p>I e-mailed this list and link to myself and plan on listening to all of them. Thanks Spirit Manager and N8Ma. Ben Comp, what do you think?</p>