<p>Welcome, jb1966! I think we now have a quorum and can form the Secret Society of CC Violists!</p>
<p>i remember years and years ago going to a Suzuki camp with my (very young) kids. We used the room after the viola class was in there and one day someone chalked āVIOLA RULES!!!ā on the blackboard. For the rest of the week I kept waiting to see if they would write down the rules, but the chalkboard never changed. I guess it was secret.</p>
<p>Love the SSCCV!</p>
<p>Great to see so many violists and their parents here. Welcome. SSCCV!!</p>
<p>SSCCV Rules! </p>
<p>@glassharmonica, Iāll PM them to youā¦as a honorary memberā¦</p>
<p>S1 is HS junior, plays trumpet. Heās exploring jazz now, playing lots of it, but weāre not sure he wants to go down the jazz path. One of the schools weāre considering, mostly because itās a small liberal arts school, is Loyola New Orleans. Knitting Gene, Iām curious about why your musician is leaving after two years there. Thank you!</p>
<p>Iād be interested to know as well. My son just got accepted at LoyNO.</p>
<p>Regarding contacting college professors, my strong suggestion is that your Son/Daughter make the contact, not the parentā¦there will be an opportunity for you to connect at some point as well (typically in person), but let your kid initiate it. Another tip - start with one or two in the Junior year of HS if they are serious about pursuing music. The feedback my Son received as a Junior really helped him to focus on specific areas, not to mention the personal connection made. He did a ālessonā with at least two of the professors twice, and they definitely remembered him and noted the mass improvement.</p>
<p>Excited about S2013ās first District Band performance later today. Thought I would share an interesting development which has taught me a lesson. We indulged our sonās new-found passion and permitted him to join two ec jazz ensembles in addition to participating in his school symphonic and jazz bands. He is doing a pretty good job of keeping up with schoolwork, but he discovered that his lip is not up to all the rehearsing and performing. He ended up unable to perform a solo at a school rehearsal and got a talking-to from his teacher, then had trouble with a District Band solo in rehearsal. So we are regrouping to figure out how he can be responsible about the commitments heās made to the ensembles he joined and protect his lip. I feel bad about the spot weāve allowed him to get into, but Iām confident this is a teaching moment for him to get through.</p>
<p>Trumpet Dad, your son is a year ahead of mine in this process. Any advice? Also, regarding LoyNO, we have a friend whose son is in their vocal program. His room mate is a trumpet player, but Iām not sure if heās pursuing performance. My friend reports both his son and room mate are very happy at LoyNO. Would appreciate your insight on their program and others your son is considering.</p>
<p>I canāt speak for how the trumpet affects lips, but my son has played trombone in FOUR high school bands for the past two years, plus weekly lessons: Jazz 1, Wind Ensemble, Chamber Winds, & Marching Band, and weāre now fielding scholarship offers from several strong programs, and his lips are fine.</p>
<p>hi, i am a senior in high school and also a cellist.
I am currently interested in the columbia-juilliard exchange.
Surprisingly, I passed the pre-screening for juilliard! quite surprised because I am not a serious musician, although I LOVE music to the death. What an honor to play for an esteemed music school. Personally, I feel fortunate to have come this far. I never intended to do so, starting cello when was 12. As a result, i have been playing for only 5.5 years nowā¦I am grateful for what music has done for me, and I hope I can express that gratitude and the joy I learned from my cello to the judges.</p>
<p>If anyone can provide me some assistance with the live audition process at Juilliard, that would be great!</p>
<p>My information is a couple years old, so someone may chime in with something more current, but from what I understand the cello department auditions are a bit warmer than the violin auditions. After the auditions end for the day, the department invites all of the applicants to lunch (am I remembering that correctly?) I also know that one of the cello teachers is retiring this year. I donāt know if/when they are hiring a replacement. Sometimes when this happens there are fewer than usual spots in the upcoming class.</p>
<p>@dpr2college: One thing we focused on was to get initial campus visits done prior to the start of senior year, knowing weād have to return to those he ultimately applied to during senior year for auditions. And senior years tend to be pretty busy to begin with.</p>
<p>On initial visits, when possible, we tried to meet with a trumpet professor and/or the head of jazz studies.</p>
<p>We initially hoped to keep the final list at no greater than six, considering the added burden of the audition process for a performance track, but that ended up ballooning to eight. That proved to be a bit much, as he ultimately withdrew his application to one school because he didnāt think heād be prepared properly for the audition.</p>
<p>It helps [if youāre willing], expense-wise and time-wise, to send him alone on return trips. I make all the arrangements and write up a detailed itinerary as a guide. We started with a simple day-trip and worked up from there.</p>
<p>We live in the northeast, so we confined our search to the eastern half of the country.</p>
<p>o Heās in at Berklee, with a nice scholarship offer. I was not expecting any money from them, so now Iām giving it a much closer look. He did a summer program with Berklee last year, in Perugia, Italy, so Iām guessing that didnāt hurt. Plus, he got to know the faculty, as many of them were there. And itās very close to home.</p>
<p>o As Iāve stated, he also got accepted at LoyNO. No mention of any money yet, but they apparently decide that during February. On our initial visit, Nick Volz spent more than 1.5 hours with him, for which I was very appreciative and, afterwards, wrote a nice email to him, the department head, and admissions people. That probably didnāt hurt, either.</p>
<p>o He didnāt get by the pre-screen at Northwestern. This was our biggest gamble. Their jazz program is rebuilding, so we thought we might sneak in the backdoor, though, even if the audition had been acceptable, he would likely have been rejected academically.</p>
<p>o He got by NYUās pre-screen and will do an on-campus audition later this month. NYU jazz tends to lean toward progressive styles.</p>
<p>o We should hear results from Temple U. within a week or so. Temple jazz doesnāt work with a quota: if they think youāre up to their standards, theyāll accept you, and then hire more instructors, if necessary. Terell Stafford is well-connected to the NY scene.</p>
<p>o Heās auditioning at Lawrence U. in a couple of weeks. We were scheduled to do a regional audition in Boston for that, but he was sick at the time, so now I have to fly him out to Wisconsin again. The jazz ensemble was rehearsing this when we visited Fred Sturm: [Radiohead</a> Jazz Project - Bodysnatchers - Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble - YouTube](<a href=āThis is Lawrence - Radiohead Jazz Project - YouTubeā>This is Lawrence - Radiohead Jazz Project - YouTube)</p>
<p>o I swapped emails with Peabody this week to see if they have everything from us, and the lady said she didnāt know. āEverythingā would include the audition CD we sent. Previously, I sent my son down there for a return visit to spend some time with Alexander Norris and it went well. Itās in a very nice section of Baltimore.</p>
<p>o Oberlin is the school he withdrew his application to, which broke my heart, but he can only do so much. Oberlin has a brand new building devoted to jazz.</p>
<p>Many thanks, TrumpetDad, for all the info. regarding your sonās trek through the audition process. We are well behind the curve if our son decides to go the performance route. Weāve only visited three Virginia Universities within a couple of hours of home, and we did not speak with any trumpet teachers on those trips. He has private lessons with a GMU professor, who seems to have lit the fire in his belly. The coming months donāt present any opportunity for college visits, as he is fully engaged in performances, four of which include travel out of town, but not to places he would consider attending college. Weāre currently debating whether to invest the time/energy in an audition tape for Summer programs in the midst of rehearsals and performances which are tiring him out. One program weāre considering is Indianaās workshop on auditions. Heās got good grades (3.8ish weighted/3.6ish unweighted), with a less rigorous course of studies than is available to him, but Iām not sure how much that matters for music majors. His first SAT was 670/640/720. Itās about where I expected him to be, although we thought he would do better than 640 in math, so weāre leaving it up to him whether he tries to improve his SATs. For us the biggest hurdle seems to be helping him figure out what path he wants to take in time to get started on that path. He is leaning away from the performance path, not sure he can cut it. Not being musicians ourselves, and seeing the growth he has made in the past six months, we are unsure what advice to give him and weāre relying on his band directors and instructors. I wonder whether a gap year is in order to help him find the right place to land. Would love to hear where your son ends up. Best of luck to him!!</p>
<p>dpr2, if your S thinks he might be interested in studying jazz in college, I highly recommend the two-week Eastman Summer Jazz program. It does require an audition recording, but for someone considering studying music in college, it is a valuable experience. It puts them in contact with other kids with the same interest, and provides some sense for what studying music at the college level might be like. Both of my sons did this the summer before senior year in high school.</p>
<p>Thank you, jazzkat, for the recommendation. I had the Eastman Jazz Studies program on my list for him to consider, but he has decided not to cut an audition tape as yet. His jazz band leader and I had arranged studio time and an accompanyist, but he doesnāt think he has enough time to prepare before the traveling he expects to do later this month through April. He wants to do a Jazz Studies Institute in July with a local program (Northern Virginia), which is fine. I feel better about having him close to home. Coincidental with saying heās not ready to do an audition tape, he has declared he will probably pursue music education with a jazz studies minor. </p>
<p>I noticed you posted a while back about JMUās Jazz Studies program. They are visiting two of the jazz ensembles in which S2013 plays, so I guess you were right about the recruiting. It will be interesting to see how he responds. JMU may be a good fit for him.</p>
<p>I have a junior daughter seeking piano performance degree. Who plays many other instruments. I am also wondering since we have not participated in any camps, competitions, orchestraās etc. Does it even make sense to apply to places like Peabody etc. She has been studying under Becky Billock since the summer. She will participate in guild auditions in may. She is progressing quite well in her audition repetoire. At this point we are extremely interested in Boyer at Temple. We already toured and had our sample lesson and the professor was very pleased. She seems to want the well rounded college experience in a urban setting. We are now looking at schools in DC or Chicago. So how much do we persue the ānameā schools since we have not gone through the common steps of interlochen etc. Just trying to figure out how to navigate all this and where to conserve energy, Thanks</p>
<p>dpr2college and TrumpetDad - Iām sorry I didnāt see your question about my sonās decision to transfer away from LOYNO. Congratulations to your kids for getting accepted! There was much that he enjoyed about the school. He loved and flourished in the theory classes and was incredibly happy with and inspired by his composition teacher. His reasons for leaving are partly personal - which heāll be thrilled that I not discuss! - but also a sense that the jazz program there was much stronger than the classical program (no surprise, really, given the setting). He also found that there were very few opportunities for studentsā work to be performed which he knew would hinder his ability to grow as a classical composer - actually, I would say that that was the biggest musical factor in his decision.</p>
<p>The general ed classes that he took all seemed to be of good quality. There are a lot of required classes, other than music classes (3 each of religion and philosophy, I think, along with some others). We found the administration to be helpful and easy to work with.</p>
<p>The setting is wonderful as you both probably know. They were very generous with scholarship help for my son. Eligibility for their academic scholarships starts with an SAT score of 1900, if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>His decision to leave was a little tough for his Dad and I (I did mention their generosity, right?) but I respected his decision-making process and the insight he gained in the last two years.</p>
<p>I do want to respect his privacy but I hope that some of this info might be helpful for you and others - best wishes to your kids!</p>
<p>Good info, KnittingGene. Thank you.</p>
<p>Did your son know any composition majors there who are focusing on jazz?</p>
<p>If so, do they fare any better at getting their compositions performed than do classical composers?</p>
<p>I can add to my post #813 that weāve since received a great scholarship off from LoyNO.</p>
<p>asalmon: Your daughterās piano teacher will be in the best position to offer advice concerning appropriate colleges/conservatories. Certainly the lack of any experience in summer programs or competitions would not rule her out from even the best schools. Admission will primarily depend on how well the audition goes and usually those judging the audition know nothing of the applicantās background. Many students who have little or no summer program or competition experience are admitted to very good schools. </p>
<p>Many of the most competitive programs will require a prescreening recording (and often the same recording will be appropriate for most of the schools with minor tweaks). This helps reduce the amount of time, energy, and expense that would otherwise go into a live audition. If your daughterās teacher believes she stands a chance at schools she would like to attend, then by all means, she should apply.</p>