Music at Georgetown

<p>Has anybody experienced the music program at Georgetown U? If so, i'm hoping to look into it for a double major course of study, so please just leave opinions of it, the emphasis on performance, faculty, etc.</p>

<p>From Georgetown's music home page:

[quote]
The A.B. in American Musical Culture is designed for students interested in pursuing careers and/or graduate study in: American Studies, arts management, cultural criticism, entertainment law, media studies, music journalism or musicology.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>As such, it's an academically based music degree. Mandatory performance requirements are just 4 semesters, as opposed to a typical BM performance curriculum, consisting of 8 semesters of main ipo, plus some ensemble work which varies by institution.</p>

<p>Without probing deeply, I don't know their lesson policy. Few instrumentalists are shown on the faculty bios.</p>

<p>It's normally not a school mentioned in a discussion of top music programs.</p>

<p>Depending on your emphasis between IR and music, it might fit your needs, but I would not place it at the level of music programs you mentioned in your other thread.</p>

<p>Yeah it isn't a big music school as far as i know.
my sister went there and told me i shouldn't apply considering that they really don't have much of a music dept.</p>

<p>We looked into Georgetown when my son applied to schools last year. He applied to a few liberal arts programs in our area (Washington DC) because he wasn't sure he would be admitted to a good music school. Georgetown has most of their instrumental teaching subcontracted to the Levine School faculty. Levine is a a community music academy - quite good, but definitely preparatory in its outlook. Presumably this means travelling to Levine for lessons (it's about 20 minutes away by car with minimal public transportation). GT had a few of their own faculty on select instruments, but none appeared to be stellar. We concluded that they are teaching a an advanced high school level and that music is not a priority for the school. They just don't seem to be interested in getting serious performing musicians at the school. By contrast, U. Va, which also has a fairly minimal department, had an excellent violin teacher (my son had a sample lesson with him) and seems to have a commitment to improving and expanding their music dept. They are recruiting musicians when they get the opportunity. Geoge Washington University has a more complete music department, a major in music (not performance) and a $15,000 merit scholarship available to talented advanced players which my son was awarded. There are some other local schools which are really strong in music with perofrmance majors (notably University of MD and James Madison), but they were not interesting to my son because the academics were less strong. Based on our research, if you are really interested in continuing your music studies in college, I would not recommend Georgetown.</p>

<p>Take a look at the course offerings. Georgetown's "American Musical Culture" major is quite different from the music major at most other schools, even at the B.A. level. It is not your usual music theory/music history type of major.</p>

<p>My husband, a non-musician and Georgetown grad (albeit many years ago) has always said that it was too bad there was essentially no music dept. Sounds like things haven't changed!</p>

<p>We found Georgetown to be a singularly un-artsy environment when we visited for our older son. I am sure there are creative kids there, but it's really not the emphasis. I grew up in DC--I would go to the University of Maryland for music or theatre before Georgetown.</p>