<p>Aside from the fact that this is the Alma Mater of James Jordan of Westminster CC, I don't know much about this school's music program.</p>
<p>My D says she knows some pretty fine musicians who go here, but she also knows one that transferred out because she didn't like the instrumental program. She's heard the vocal program is pretty good, but she can't really say from whom.</p>
<p>Does anybody have any insight?</p>
<p>I wish I could be more help but we did visit there and found the facilities nice and the people we met very friendly. D decided to only audition at one school in PA and chose West Chester - largely because of the early audition date. A friend of my D, who is a vocalist, did pursue Susquehanna and was accepted. She liked the school very much, but decided to choose Bucknell for reasons unrelated to music.</p>
<p>My son attends SU as a business major and my wife graduated from there in 19-mumblety-8 with a music ed degree. My impression is that their facilities are very nice (the acoustics in their small concert hall are quite yummy), their choral music programs are very good (particularly their new choral director Rodney Caldwell), their opera programs are not quite as strong, and their instrumental programs have their strengths and weaknesses, mostly depending on how good a teacher they have for a given instrument. They occasionally produce an outstanding instrumentalist or vocalist who could compete with graduates of the top conservatories, but the overall average is somewhat lower than you would find at such institutions. For a medium-sized LAC in central Pennsylvania, the overall music program is a lot stronger than you might expect and the school seems to have overcome the financial problems it was in several years back and is now growing. Having overhauled the music building a few years ago, they are now building a bunch of new, pretty ritzy dorms and recently broke ground on a new science building.</p>