<p>I'm currently a 3rd year BM Composition student at Florida State and very soon I am going to have to start seriously thinking about where I'm going to grad school. Right now I've just been sort of thinking about where to even apply. I'm kind of in a bind in some ways, some composers who's music I love and I would love to study with teach at schools that might be less than stellar. Then there's also the thought in the back of my mind, "Would I get accepted as a master's student there?" </p>
<p>As for info on myself and my tastes, I'm fairly open minded and don't want to go to a school that's super conservative. However, I don't want to go to a school that's on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Hopefully you get where I'm coming from, so here's the list of schools I'm going to apply to as of now. I'm also looking for a school that has theatre and dance departments in addition to music because I want to do more than just write concert music.</p>
<p>Listed top priority to "safety" with their respective faculty members:
New England Conservatory
Yale
Juilliard (Corigliano)
Ithaca College (Dana Wilson)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Bolcolm and Daughrety)
University of North Texas (Cindy McTee)
University of Southern California (Lauridsen, Ticheli, etc)
University of Texas (Donald Grantham)
University of Eastern Michigan (Anthony Iannacconne)</p>
<p>If people could give me on schools from this list and tell whatever you can and more I would greatly appreciate it. I just kind of need to know where to start..</p>
<p>I'm the internet publicist for the University at Buffalo. We have a small but competitive Masters Composition program here, headed by David Felder and includes also Jonathan Golove, Cort Lippe, and Jeffrey Stadelman. The director of the department likes to emphasize that we are a school that combines traditional discipline with twenty-first century ideas. Basically his point is that we encourage the traditional education as a foundation but only as a jumping off point for your own ideas and development. We're a theory-based school that encourages independent and sometimes unorthodox thought.</p>
<p>As a composer you'd be surrounded by some award-winning colleagues such as Paolo Cavellone, who has won several composition awards in Italy and the US. We're also inspired by our previous composition instructor Morty Feldman, who left a legacy of great teaching behind. </p>
<p>My son is an '07 BM viola performance grad, and had friends who had great undergrad composition experiences there. Hartt also has strong theater and dance departments as well.</p>
<p>My boyfriend is getting his master's in composition at Yale. It's a very selective program and offers many opportunities. If you have any specific questions about it--the environment, the teachers--send me a message.</p>
<p>This is the exact boat I'm in; I'm looking for graduate composition schools. I'm a music education major with a year left and just recently began thinking seriously about composition; I also am pretty open-minded about my tastes, and although I'm interested in general composition I would be interested in a school with a film scoring program or emphasis as well. As far as Hartt goes, I recently met Joe Turrin and he's an incredibly nice guy and I'd love to study with him. </p>
<p>I'm interested in any information about other schools as well though, as I know nothing. What are some pros/cons for choosing schools based on a specific faculty member you'd like to study with, versus a bigger school with a solid music program? So far I've been interested in USC and Michigan in the big school realm, any thoughts? Thanks!</p>
<p>Check out University of Cincinnati's Cincinnati's Conservatory of Music (CCM). In fact, Cincinnati even offers a DMA in composition.It was ranked in the top 9 by US News. Most conservatories have MM and higher.</p>
<p>For the record, Joseph Turrin only works at Hartt part time, he's pretty busy actually being a full time composer :-p. But yeah, I've been told by students at Hartt that he's only there maybe every other semester or something like that, the main professor there, Robert Carl I think, is quite good though.</p>
<p>I agree, I find posts like that very fishy. You can't really drop rank numbers and school names and say, "Here that school is perfect for you". Especially for graduate programs you have to find something that's just right, not just say. Eastman ranked quite high, but I wouldn't go there for composition, not anymore anyway. Maybe when Schwantner was still there.</p>
<p>Windcloudultra asks,"Again...taxguy: would you so kindly post the rankings...I'm REALLY rather curious"</p>
<p>Windcloudultra and others, I NEVER say anything without some basis for my statements.</p>
<p>The rankings are as follows for music and composition:</p>
<p>Music and Arts Programs<br>
Opera/Voice: 3rd in the U.S.
Musical Conducting: 5th in the U.S.
Music: 6th in the U.S.
Music Composition: 9th in the U.S.
Orchestra/Symphony:<br>
They were gotten from here: Facts</a> about the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio</p>
<p>If you are curious about how UC got these, call up UC.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone is saying that you are making up the numbers, just that the numbers are not very useful without knowing the methodology used to produce them, how long ago the study was done, and the potential biases involved. It would be nice to know who originated the ratings, when they did so and how they arrived at their conclusions. I think that is what WindCloudUltra and others are trying to get at.</p>
<p>UC/CCM's numbers apparently come from US News and World Report, and most likely are from different years since they do not rate every one of those musical areas every year. Some of the ratings may be much older than 2005 and programs can change markedly overnight with the arrival or departure of a single teacher. Personally, I do not find their rankings of music programs to be very useful. I believe that it takes a lot more personalized research than they can possibly do with one key element being the match between an individual teacher and an individual student. At best, I think ratings like USN&WR's provide a list that can be checked against to make sure that you have not neglected any obvious possibilities. Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>BassDad, you may be absolutely right.. I certainly can't evaluate a music program. I can't even hum on key, nevermind evaluating a program in composition. </p>
<p>I don't know how old the rating were or what methodology was used by US News and World Report. I can only relate the published facts that I have and let everyone choose for themselves.</p>
<p>Did you ever see the movie "Dead Poets Society"? Remember the part where the students first get their textbook, in which the author was going on about rating poetry numerically by computing the area under a graph? The Robin Williams character instructs them to rip that page out and the students are at first shocked that a teacher would tell them to damage a book. Later they stand up to his replacement when told to read that page.</p>
<p>I think you are running into some of the same sensibilities here.</p>