<p>Is it complete suicide to go to SUNY Fredonia for your Masters Degree?</p>
<p>I went to Ithaca College for my undergrad and graduated with a BM in Voice Performance/Education and now want to go to graduate school for performance but with vocal pedagogy influences as well. Fredonia is close to home, inexpensive, is known as the 'SUNY music school' (at least for undergrad), and also has a teacher that I'm interested in studying with. Ultimately I want to be a Professor of Voice... which means more PhD work down the road.</p>
<p>I guess my question is, with the MM in Performance degree I am pursuing, is it going to look bad to future grad schools and employers if my BM is from Ithaca and my MM is from Fredonia? I am well aware that most times it is the other way around. Has anyone heard about the Masters program at Fredonia for music?</p>
<p>Please help! I'm desperate... thank you :)</p>
<p>Go where you will come out singing well enough to compete at auditions and perform professionally. Does their grad school produce good singers? Is there a reason you consider it as some sort of professional suicide?</p>
<p>If there is a particular teacher at Fredonia who interests you, then go, have a sample lesson and a talk. The school has had a definite problem in retention of voice faculty- and of course, you can’t guarantee that something won’t come up anyway- so do inquire about the teacher’s future plans. Also discuss what productions they have planned for the next two years and how they see you fitting into that and how the undergrad classes mesh with the grad requirements.
What schools are you considering?</p>
<p>musicamusica : I love your user name! The reason I am so hesitant is because, although I think this teacher would be really good for me, I have never heard of a professor (my ultimate career goal) getting their masters from SUNY Fredonia, only their bachelors. Would this deplete my chance of a collegiate career later on?</p>
<p>Mezzo’sMama : That is great advice… as of right now Fredonia is my one choice unless I wait and apply again for next year. I had a family situation that required me to come back to the WNY area and so I will be here for a while. I did not want to put my education on hold, so when I met this teacher it seemed like the perfect way to go. BUT I also know the ridiculous amount of importance that is put on the ‘name’ of the school you get your education from (which, in my opinion, is not very fair). It should be the teacher, not the school, that you get your education from.</p>
<p>Are you from the area? How do you know Fredonia?</p>
<p>Are you aware that most music performance voice teachers have had stage careers at some time before teaching? Just going from a BM to a graduate degree and off to teach at the university level would be extraordinary. Even if that graduate degree is from a top school.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents: Recently SUNY Potsdam (Crane) had postings for several music prof positions. The minimum they wanted was a MM and it stated in the postings that for tenure the candidate would need a doctorate at some point. So, if the voice prof at Fredonia is a good fit, go for it and try for a name school at the doctorate level. Also, most of the community colleges and private undergrad colleges in my area list as music adjuncts many people with only masters from places like Fredonia and Crane in their bios. Alumni networks such as Ithaca’s, or Fredonia’s will certainly help with placement. For example, son went to a summer program where all the local teachers came from Crane but they brought in nationally recognized talent for master classes. Also, he attended several honors ensembles where the conductors were from Ithaca, Fredonia and Crane. Locally, alumni networks are a huge help in getting hired. If your dream is to teach at a professional level conservatory such as Juilliard, Eastman, etc then you will need a better name school and a performance career before you will be considered.</p>
<p>musicamusica : Yes, I am aware that a performing career is an essential stepping stone to a professor position at a college/university. I plan to be auditioning for young artist programs and shows throughout my time in school and after I graduate. So performing is in there, I am very eager to be a teacher though… who knows, maybe a vocal pedagogy teacher is more of what I am looking for! It’s all apart of finding what I want to do in my life. </p>
<p>Momofbassist : Thank you so much for the valuable advice! The music job field is hard enough to get into without competing at the big name schools, my plan is to steer clear of all that 
I just love to sing and to teach… if I could, in the future, find a job at a local college or help even to create a new program in a university, that would be a dream come true for me. If you don’t mind me asking, what area/schools did you see that the professors have MM degrees from Fredonia?</p>
<p>Colorsoprano—I was just making a point (but not very well!) that you should look for grad schools that will aid you in getting roles on stage. Be brutally honest with yourself about your current development and find the MM program that will get you to that next step. Get into a program that will enable you to spend a good part of that two years on stage in your program’s productions. You might want to leave Fredonia just to cast a wider net . And just know that as tough as top grad school auditions are, major YAP auditions make them look like a cake walk.</p>
<p>Colorsoprano: Near you, Buffalo State has a music prof with only a BM from Fredonia and one with Fredonia BM, Ithaca MM. UB also is showing several adjuncts with MM from Fredonia. In the NY capital region, Schenectady CC has several with Ithaca as undergrad and College of St Rose for their Masters. St Rose is locally known for music ed and music industry. Also, there are many MM faculty from Crane, too. Since Crane and Fredonia consider themselves competitors, I consider a MM from Crane on par with Fredonia’s. Since you are still interested in pursuing a Phd after the MM then Fredonia could be a good stepping stone since circumstances are keeping you in the area anyway. (Just be certain that the voice teacher there will keep developing your voice and not take you backwards.)</p>
<p>I must disagree with the statement that most VP teachers have performance careers before teaching. Some do, of course but by no means all and those who do “perform” may not have much beyond a Violetta in a small burg in Germany from a pay-to-sing program. There are very good teachers who figure out early in the game that their heart lies in teaching and they streamline that route and supplement it with concert work and oratorios, performing new music for composers and some stage work in the off season or working in summer programs. A great many teachers in very good UK/EU conservatories do not have terminal degrees and there are any number of “well known” singers who are rubbish at teaching- look around on Youtube at some Master Classes to get a sense of what I mean if you don’t have friends in other places who can share info!
It’s really a matter of preference:some really want a “name” teacher who has been around for a while and others can relate easier to a younger teacher who might be a bit less formal.
Colorsoprano- if the teacher at Fredonia (and yes, I’m well acquainted with the area and the school) really seems like someone you can work with, make an appointment after you’ve had a lesson and talk about how she/he sees you fitting into the school’s program and ideas for summer programs. I know of Fredonia students who have regular church jobs in places from Dunkirk to Buffalo so there are performance opps to be had. Why don’t you also start looking at schools that you’d consider for your PhD and see what jobs are available for adjunct voice faculty? That might make the path ahead clearer for you.
The other option you have is to take a gap year- which is not at all uncommon for VP students (voices develop slower). Find a suitable teacher and keep working and apply where you want when you are able.</p>
<p>I am not talking about being a “well known singer”, but things are so competitive now that there has been something of a game change. The amount of singers coming into the market with their MM has exploded in the last ten years and the opportunities to sing have shrunk. The singer who is aiming for a teaching position must sing really well, well enough to have at least the vestiges of a singing career, even if it is just singing oratorios and new works. And even the vestiges of a singing career are getting tougher and tougher to acquire. That’s why I would recommend that the OP simply learn to sing well. Really well. What worked for new faculty fifteen years ago, may not be valid now.</p>
<p>I’m going to add a little addendum: I know that MezzoM and I have disagreed on the competitive atmosphere before. Could this possibly be regional.? Perhaps there has not been much of a change in the hiring climate or the competitive atmosphere in Cleveland or Upstate New York? Our experience is based on what D knows out on the West Coast(LA , SF and Seattle) Chicago and NYC.Perhaps the fact that her sights have been firmly fixed on those larger markets has colored my opinions. Strangely enough she did ace a very plum teaching job at a top university for just this summer—but she is aware, due to her youth and inexperience, that this sort of thing is just temporary.</p>
<p>Just sincerely wondering.</p>
<p>I wonder then if these days you could become a “Stephen King”, Rice’s department head and in demand teacher who has dedicated his career to teaching, not performing.</p>
<p>Musicamerica: I’m not in music but just see it from a Mom’s point of view but in upstate NY it is still competitive for music majors but some still seem to cobble out a living teaching and performing in regional and local markets. In the Albany area, there are about 8 colleges, and 3 community colleges all offering music classes so they all need teachers. 2 of son’s private bass teachers in high school worked as adjuncts while performing in the regional orchestras and teaching. One was older 50+ and the other in his mid 20’s both have MM degrees though the younger one was accepted to several name doctoral programs but chose to put it off for family reasons. Most of son’s high school music buddies took private lessons from similarly qualified teachers in their respective areas. The cost of living is much lower in upstate New York so it attracts many musicians due to proximity to the bigger markets and cultural opportunities.</p>
<p>Singersmom07–that’s the first person to come to my mind. I still do not think that you need to necessarily even “dedicate your career” to performing, but I do think (from what we have perceived in recent hiring practices) that some sort of significant performing experience is now required.
As far as teaching in High School—that’s at least one way to go, even in LA D has a fully booked private studio and teaches twice a week at two private schools. That does only afford her an exceptionally nasty apartment. She is giving up one of those part time jobs this fall,( in order to travel to auditions) and she is taken aback by the number of qualified teachers and singers begging her to submit their names as a replacement. The best thing about teaching in a private HS is the amount of private students that you pick up. I imagine if you teach privately long enough, have a successful studio(meaning successful students) and eventually get your DMA—you could conceivably work your way to a university career without a performance career. Then again…there’s a very good chance you could just get stuck teaching HS. So I still believe that at the MM level you should focus on being the best performer you can be and THAT should be the focus of your school search. And that school may very well be the one you are at right now.</p>
<p>musica-no, I don’t think that it’s a middle of nowhere regional thing nor do think that you and I are as far apart as we may seem to others. The changes in the world of classical singing is having a major impact, no doubt about it. The number of kids graduating with VP degrees each year far exceeds what it was even 10 years ago much less back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, when a lot of the teachers currently at major conservatories hit the street (and there were quite a few of them who didn’t have degrees, but who worked with good teachers). Gone are the days when, like Frederica von Stade, one could wander into a top school during lunch hour just wanting to learn how to read music and end up with a Met contract in hand a few years later! A lot of schools haven’t hired a new VP teacher in quite a few years and many of those that are there have bios consisting of roles sung in small houses in Europe or in the US companies which no longer exist. There were the days of Rudolph Bing at the Met when American singers were preferentially hired and younger singers also got opportunities from the tours and outreach that the company did. There were fewer singers though, so more opportunities existed.
Now we have schools- and not all of them even considered as high as 3rd tier schools- churning out singers by the hundreds as VP and MT grads. Are all of these kids employable as professional singers, or are they even very good? Odds are against that. But, off they go during the summers to non-auditioned programs, many in Europe, where the main requirement is the family’s ability to write a big check and at the end of the period, home come the kids with pictures of themselves singing next to a very pretty fountain or talking about having sung Zerlina in a scenes concert in a picturesque Austrian village. There you go: performance credits![ I will admit that I am not a proponent of the pay-to-sing programs (for the most part); they’re an invention to keep all of the American kids happy, young European singers don’t take part. When and if you’re good enough, you’ll be able to attend programs without paying an arm and a leg.]
Seattle Opera just announced the suspension of its Young Artist Program, effective in the 2013-2014 season, due to a shortfall in funds. I fear that other programs may also be in jeopardy, which will leave fewer good training grounds for emerging artists. Has anyone else been following the entrant (and winners) lists in major vocal competitions this year? Instead of seeing unfamiliar names, singers who have been performing featured roles at houses from the Met to the ROH and who have come through the Lindemann, HGO,Ryan Opera Center and Merola/Adler Young Artist Programs are entering and taking home the money. This is a change from the past and we can only speculate as to what’s driving it.
Singersmom07- There are many voice department heads serving now who have very little performing experience, but that’s an interesting question. If a school has an excellent director of the opera department and a top coaching staff is it really that necessary for the pedagogical side to have loads of roles under their belts? I’m not sure, and it may well be dependent upon the interdepartmental relationships.
There are great singers who are terrible teachers- they just are not able to communicate the “how tos” or they can’t deal with the spotlight not being on them, and there are vocal coaches- collaborative pianists- who aren’t singers at at all, but who can make a good voice better and a great voice sublime by unlocking potential and helping the singer find the best path through a piece. An excellent teacher may not have sung every role within his/her fach but might have a tremedous grasp of vocal health, breath support and technique. I think we all agree that there are different ways to achieve a goal and that not everyone’s goal is the same. musica pointed out that there are different teaching locales, some of which may even provide a living while pursuing further study. I also firmly agree with the statement that one should focus upon being the best possible performer, but again, that might have different meanings to different people. In this very overcrowded field, it’s important to make yourself stand out from the pack.</p>
<p>I didnt mean to imply that Cleveland or upstate NY is in “a middle of nowhere” . What I meant is that every market is different and perhaps the pool of singers there creates different hiring practices. Are you seeing younger teachers (recent hires) with very little performance experience? Just not seeing that here.</p>
<p>I do think that one thing the OP is missing out on by staying in the same region, is the ability to extend her networking capabilities. With opportunities dwindling you really need to have more exposure to more than one market. For teaching AND performance.</p>
<p>I know you didn’t mean anything of the sort, musica, it was my choice of words! Given the cost and difficulty of getting anywhere from Western NY, it might as well be in the Arctic Circle!
Yes, I am seeing younger teachers ( 32-35, which I consider a “young” teacher) hired at some very good schools in the Midwest and South, but although they don’t have massive resumes padded with roles, they are actively performing in ways I’ve mentioned and have taught in summer festivals with good reputations. Their private students, outside of academia, have gained admission to really good schools.
I agree that it would be great of the OP could look elsewhere, but it seems as if she is restricted due to personal reasons. Since it’s not unusual for singers to take a year + off between undergrad and grad, she might be well served by finding a good teacher to work with and sitting it out for a bit.</p>