Top schools in piano performance

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>hi everyone! I am a international student applying for piano performance (BM).</p>

<p>I wonder which schools/conservatories have good reputations in this program. </p>

<p>You know sometimes reputations are quite different between what natives and foreigners think about.</p>

<p>I know Juilliard, Curtis, which I think they are the best... And I am about to submit the applications to these schools. </p>

<p>However, to my great curiosity, why Eastman always be no.1 on almost every rank(about conservatories in US) in recent years? Though these ranks has many different versions spread in my country. I know esm is very good, but second to none...Is that true? </p>

<p>Also, about oberlin conservatory... It seems not to be a top school in my country according to the ranks(only at top 20) and school location(a lot of people are crazy about NY). I don't care about that, but I want to receive the high quality of education. How is oberlin?</p>

<p>You can also recommend me the other schools which gain high reputations.</p>

<p>Thx !</p>

2

<p>Hi musicdream, some top programs in piano in my opinion (in addition to Juilliard and Curtis):
Eastman School of Music
Peabody Institute
Cleveland Institute of Music
Rice University
Oberlin
Indiana University
Northwestern University
University of Michigan
Bard Conservatory</p>

<p>These are programs that have very respected faculty in piano. There are many less well-known schools that have very good piano faculty too. </p>

<p>Don’t pay too much attention to the various rankings that you see online. They are not really that useful.</p>

<p>Remember that not all professors at a school are going to be equally good for you. Getting into a top-ranked school according to the internet with a professor that doesn’t really understand you may not be as useful as getting into a lower-ranked school with a professor who is very excited to teach you. The right professor is very important.</p>

<p>Think about what you want out of your education. Are you mesmerized by Chopin’s music? Find a specialist in that era. Do you want to enter a lot of competitions? Choose a teacher who encourages that (and perhaps a location that makes that convenient!). Do you want to take part in university life outside of the music school? Find a School of Music inside a university. </p>

<p>I think Oberlin has some faculty that are tremendous. Go to schools’ websites and read the faculty biographies as well as the rest of the website. You will start to get an idea of the character of the place as well as the faculty. Google them and see what they have been up to! That will help you figure things out.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>I second lastbird’s comment about rankings. The methodology behind the rankings you see online is highly questionable. Some of the larger companies who do rankings really have no sense of what a conservatory student needs. There are a few latecomers that are even more suspect–one in particular is an entrepreneurial young composer who bases his rankings on the same stuff we do here: anecdotal stories from friends. It’s fine to base opinions on hearsay (it’s the best we can do most of the time in this business) but not exactly an unbiased scientific ranking. In the end, there is no reliable way to broadly rank conservatory programs. There are just too many “moving parts”. The best school for you as a pianist could be completely different from every other person in the waiting room when you are about to audition. </p>

4

<p>As others have said, those online rankings, especially US News and World Report, are bogus when it comes to music schools, they are based in criteria that mean basically nothing, like SAT’s of entering students, cost/benefit ratio (however they do it) and so forth, and it is often apples and oranges.</p>

<p>One other comment, be careful about saying things like Juillliard and Curtis are the best…they are both great conservatories with great faculty, but there is often the perception, especially with people from overseas, that somehow getting in to those programs is either the be all and end all, or that more mistakenly, that graduating from there somehow gives you an in to ‘making it’ in music. The edge they give is great faculty in many cases, and because they are so well known, they can pick and choose whom they admit, and have a very high level of playing pretty much across the board (put it this way, the students at those two schools, in terms of the difference in level between the best and worst students, is going to be a lot smaller than many other programs) so that can help. A friend of my S’s, who is Korean-American, went to Korea and visited with some relatives who lived in a small town in the hinterlands someplace, and when he mentioned he went to a conservatory, they all automatically said “Juilliard”, it amazed him that even there they knew of Juilliard…but with music there is no hierarchical ranking like that, you don’t give a resume to an orchestra and they say “hmm, went to Juilliard, hire them”. Places like Juilliard and Curtis do offer advantages outside the level of instruction, there also is networking, plus the ability to do gigs while studying (so for example, Curtis students often do substitute gigs with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Juilliard students can get gigs being in NYC), so there is definitely pluses to going to those schools…but other schools offer you pluses, too.</p>

<p>The ultimate reason to go to a school is that there are teacher(s) there that you believe can drive your playing forward, that you can work with, then the rest of it is kind of a list of pluses and minuses. Some schools have better facilities than others (for example, Juilliard has Steinways in all its practice rooms that they spend a lot of time maintaining), other schools have great facilities and faculty but the location may not work for a student (Oberlin, for example, is a great music school, but it is in a rural area, and not all students like that, other kids may not like city areas, some schools have more performance opportunities than others. In the end, you have to decide what works for you, and if a teacher at a school really seems to be what you need, but they aren’t at Juilliard or Curtis or some other school others tell you “is the best”, do what you think is best. A very prestigious school that doesn’t work for you in terms of teacher or location or whatever isn’t going to help you as much as a place that works for you. </p>

<p>Other schools with good piano faculty:</p>

<p>New England Conservatory
Colburn School of Music
USC</p>

5

<p>I understand what you are saying about Curtis and Juilliard and reputation but there is big difference between those other schools and Colburn and Curtis in the cost department. I’ve heard some people call Juilliard their “fall back school” if they don’t get into Curtis. Hah! </p>

<p>Seriously, CIM’s piano department is amazing and I highly recommend it, but in the end it’s all about the teacher. Follow the teacher. </p>