<p>I am currently a rising junior at a liberal arts school in New York (with a concentration in music). I am a pianist and harpsichordist, and I intend to go on to get both an MM and a DMA once I graduate. I have been successful in school and have had numerous opportunities to learn and to perform, but I do not believe that I am Juilliard/Curtis material.</p>
<p>What are some schools with decent reputations in their keyboard departments (with or without harpsichord studies)? I just feel like I need some names to get started with my search before I go to my professors. Thanks!</p>
<p>DS went to U of North Carolina School of the Arts. Their piano faculty is good. A lot depends on what you want to DO with your playing? Are you interested in collaborative piano, or solo work or teaching or what.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll take a look at those programs.</p>
<p>I’m pretty involved with the chamber music programs at my school - particularly on harpsichord. I have an interest in teaching as well as in performance.</p>
<p>You haven’t said where in New York you are currently studying/ There are lots of good possibilities for graduate studies in the New York City area, including Mannes, Manhattan School, Queens College, Brooklyn College, NYU, SUNY Purchase and SUNY Stony Brook .</p>
<p>I’m at Sarah Lawrence College. I wanted to get a lib. arts education in addition to studying music for my undergrad (I must confess I was also way too nervous about the audition process - I’m doing MUCH better with that now). I’m not particularly intent on staying in NY, but I really just want to make sure I find a school SOMEWHERE that will accept me.</p>
<p>About my background - I spent a lot of time playing the flute at my performing arts high school, but I worked just as hard outside of school with my private piano teacher. I attended a summer program at Idyllwild as a rising junior in HS and at Brevard as a rising senior in HS.</p>
<p>My theory/music history background is really strong. I am getting some experience teaching (my primary interest, ultimately) both piano and theory/history/aural skills while I am at SLC; I am also leading sectionals for the advanced choral group on campus. This is in addition to hard work in private lessons and a heavy course load of performance classes for solo and chamber works and theory/history courses.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this helps - of course you don’t really know me…but I do appreciate any insights you might have. Thanks again!</p>
<p>TrebleC - I’d heard that McGill in Montreal has a strong early music program, so it might be worth a look.
I’d also second the look at Manhattan School of Music - my D was in an opera where the music director was from MSM, and it was performed on period instruments, including harpsichord.</p>
<p>Treble-
As has been pointed out in other threads on here (a lot), you may want to get an evaluation of your skills, so you don’t oversell or undersell yourself and your level. You may want to get an evaluation from a high level pianist or piano teacher, to see what they think, as they probably know what the relative levels are in the various programs and how you fit in, it is invaluable I think and more then worth the fees (and there are probably threads on here, or people on here, who can guide you towards finding someone to do the evaluation, or maybe there is someone really good on campus you could get an evaluation from?). Without that outside assessment, you might either set yourself up to fail by applying to programs over your head, or sell yourself short.</p>
<p>I also would be careful about relative levels of schools, some of the schools other people have mentioned in NY, for example, like MSM, Mannes, and even SUNY Purchase or Stonybrook, are not all that much less competitive then Juilliard (and probably some of the other schools mentioned, but I cannot talk about them), which again is why an evaluation is so important, because if someone tells you, for example, that a school in the league of Juilliard is way out of reach, then MSM and Mannes for grad school may not be a good fit…</p>