<p>So D and I had an enlightening visit to Temple (Boyer) and Westminster Choir College last week as she auditioned for vocal performance. D's career plans have been evolving this past year as we learn more and more. She isn't really interested in being a solo vocalist or opera singer. Her strong interests include being in a professional chorale, choral conducting & perhaps being on a college/university faculty as well as working with state honor choirs, summer festivals, etc. We were advised that for this career path, Music Education is probably the best degree. The more I think about it, the more it does seem to make sense - a choral conductor is really a sort of teacher with their choir. Does anyone else have any wisdom they can chime in with? It seems this decision needs to be made pretty early on.</p>
<p>The only thing about Music Ed is that focuses upon teaching in the public schools, which will have her taking education courses like any other prospective teacher. State honor choirs I would assume could require a music ed, in that least from what I recall, often they are led by public school music teachers (least it was when my S did it here in NJ), but college programs, being a professional chorale director and such would not require a music ed degree, nor would summer festivals and such. A music ed degree would give the added possibility of teaching in a public school program, but also requires a lot of extra work as well. </p>
<p>It is a TON of work - more so than performance. With music ed, D will have to learn to play brass, winds & strings to the level where she could teach beginners, as well as many courses in educational techniques, working with inclusive populations, etc. There IS more conducting in the music ed curriculum, which is a big plus. What she will miss out on is extra work in languages, vocal repertoire, and opera workshop. She considered double-majoring, but that will take at minimum an extra semester, possibly a full 5th year. But she could probably fill any cracks in her schedule or do summer work in the languages & vocal repertoire. Hmmm…</p>
<p>My brother is the Chairman of a music dept. at a small LAC in the midwest. He conducts the college symphony orchestra, choir and chamber choir. Conducting is his passion. He got a BM performance degree and then a MM in conducting. He worked with various city orchestras, community choirs and youth orchestras before he landed his current job. He is active as a clinician in district and state festivals though he has never conducted All State- would like to, but hard to get away from his day job! My S and D have been involved in lots of All State groups and it seems that the Conductors often come from college programs with degrees in performance and conducting as well as some HS Conductors with education backgrounds. </p>
<p>My S is at WCC (voice performance). His best friend is interested in conducting and is getting a BA in music, with ambitions to get an MM in conducting. Most of the students at Westminster are in music ed, but many are double majoring in performance as well. It’s fairly easy (well, not easy but doable) to do both. </p>
<p>I agree with cellomom2. As the treasurer of the string teachers’ association for our area, I can tell you that the conductors we book to do the students’ festivals are almost always music faculty from colleges. I also found this to be true with my own two daughters’ experiences for All-County and All-State festivals (New York Sate). Some of the conductors at these festivals are public school teachers, but many are not. So a Music Ed. degree would not be a necessity if this is what your daughter would like to pursue.</p>
<p>I’m also confused by your D having to learn strings, winds, brass–in my state we have general/vocal music certification and secondary choral certification for vocalists, and instrumental K-12 certifcation for instrumentalists. Does the school require her to get certified in all areas? I guess I don’t understand how someone without any instrumental background prior to college could become certified to teach in that area–all of the band/orchestra directors I know play an instrument and had to audition on that instrument for college. I also agree that music education and teacher certification is not needed for college teaching. A B.M. or B.A. in performance and then graduate degrees in conducting sounds like more what your D might be interested in.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input everyone - Ideally, she could just start as vocal performance, then switch if it seemed like the right move later, but it seems like the Music Ed curriculum is so jam-packed that you better figure it out by the first semester. I think it might be easier to switch back to VP if she changed her mind. And yes, at both the Pennsylvania and the New Jersey schools that we just visited, all music ed majors learn both instrumental and vocal/choral instruction. There were percussionists (and other instrumentalists) in the “Teaching Choral Music” class that we visited - they brought a really fun sound to the rehearsing they did (some beat boxing, lots of tapping). You continue to do private instruction in your primary instrument/voice. D’s one advantage is that she will come in with lots of AP credit which may give her a little wiggle room. The Pennsylvania school (Temple) said straight out that the double major is a full 5-year program.</p>
<p>Just spent some time on the Indiana Jacobs website, where they conveniently profile their doctoral conducting students. Y’all are correct - they mostly come from performance backgrounds and are highly accomplished on their primary instrument. Well, our advice to D so far has been to follow her passion, so that will apply here as well. Right now, she is passionate about becoming a better singer and learning conducting, not so much about learning strings, etc. So perhaps VP with some additional conducting courses worked in.</p>
<p>You can be highly accomplished on you instrument and come from a music ed background. Colleges don’t just hire teachers with a performance only background. That’s just not true. </p>
<p>I don’t think anyone said that bigdjp - most of the professors we have met so far have Music Ed backgrounds which is why we started to ask about it. I’m just looking for what advice to give my daughter on the best path for her, given her specific interests.</p>
<p>Just watched a concert tonight and the soloist had a DePaul music ed bachelors, Catholic U vocal pedagogy masters, and DM from Michigan. He is a prof of voice and choral conductor at the school. So it looks like your daughter can do what she is most passionate about and adjust course at the next level if necessary.</p>
<p>@bigdjp-
No one is saying colleges don’t hire music ed people, the idea was that you don’t need a music ed degree to teach at a college level and if they have no desire to teach in K-12 public schools, that the extra work may not be worth it, the teaching classes and so forth designed for state certification. Plus music ed majors on instruments have to learn about a wide variety of instruments, which can take away from time on the primary one, it is all about what the person wants to do in terms of what tradeoffs they want/need, that’s all. </p>