<p>My daughter has played in the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Orchestra for 8 years. Playing at the highest level for two years. Total 9 years of violin. She has played in the Sydney Opera house, New Zealand, and will be performing this summer in Europe.
She is a honors student and in the International Baccalaurate programme.<br>
How do we find the best orchestra program?
What kinds of scholarships are avaliable for Boston College or Boston University?
Does anyone know of a great orchestra performing school that is in a city???</p>
<p>I’m confused - is she planning to be a music major or does she want to major in something else but still continue her orchestra involvement at college?</p>
<p>I suspect that you are going to get responses that orchestra comes along with a performance degree (other then maybe piano), that for orchestral instruments any performance degree has study in orchestra and ensemble playing as part of it. From what I know, when there is a specific major in orchestral studies like you are talking about, it is at the graduate level and for example, is aimed, in the case of violins, for preparing students for the role of concertmaster, or to help instrumentalists in their approach to auditions and the like (Eastman and MSM have such programs as examples)</p>
<p>So basically as an undergraduate a student leaning towards becoming an orchestral musician studies the same things as those wishing to become soloists or chamber musicians, there isn’t the specialization there. That said, schools as part of the BM performance degree might offer courses in orchestral studies as electives, and there also might be some music schools that in fact offer orchestral studies as a standalone from the BM track (there are a lot of music schools out there so anything is possible IME) but from what I know, as an undergraduate you basically do a BM degree whatever you are planning to do.</p>
<p>Or are you looking as stradmom said, for a program where someone majoring in something other then music can play in the orchestra?</p>
<p>If you’re looking for a place for an undergraduate music performance degree with a good orchestral program, BU is a fine choice; the orchestra is better than many of its peer orchestras (i.e. other music school orchestras). The violin faculty is strong. I’m happy to comment further if you’re interested in the music degree-- I’m a BU alum with a violin performance degree.</p>
<p>If your daughter doesn’t want to major in performance then BU could still work thanks to a new minor in music performance: [Music</a> Minor & Applied Studies: Performance College of Fine Arts | Boston University](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/cfa/music/prospective/degrees/minors/music/]Music”>http://www.bu.edu/cfa/music/prospective/degrees/minors/music/)</p>
<p>However, BC isn’t a great idea for either the major or the minor. It’s certainly a weak department for a major, and doesn’t have a particularly strong orchestra. Better choices in the Boston area would be Harvard, MIT, Brandeis, and Wellesley.</p>
<p>She isn’t positive. She thinks she might major in somehting else and minor in music.</p>
<p>Did you have to audition every year at BU? She said she would be frustrated if she was playing in a orchestra program that wasn’t challenging enough.</p>
<p>Almost all college orchestras (if not all) require an audition at least yearly (some audition each semester). Therefore the presence of an annual audition is not necessarily a sign of quality. Some orchestras accept virtually everyone (i.e. at least all the strings that audition–they won’t take 6 trumpets!) and merely use the audition for determining seating within a section. Fiddlefrog’s comments on the quality of the BU orchestra (good) and the BC orchestra (not so strong) accord with my limited knowledge.</p>
<p>Your daughter may want to search for you tube recordings of orchestras at schools that she is interested in. While the quality of these recordings often is not great, it is usually fairly obvious if an orchestra is not strong. Some schools like NEC in Boston have recordings of their orchestra that they will send (even unsolicited) for free.</p>
<p>I should add that it’s not entirely clear to me from the BU music minor website whether the minors in performance are expected to play with the CFA ensembles (i.e. the ensembles for performance majors) or the all-university groups, which are much weaker.
Groups in both categories require auditions, but the non-majors ensemble auditions are not very competitive.</p>