<p>Hi!
We're beginning the junior year search for "the college" this year and my D (a lyric soprano who has done very well in competitions and has a lot of performing experience) has narrowed her choices down to these:
Cleveland Institute of Music, CCM, Oberlin, Bowling Green, Curtis, Peabody, BoCo, New England and Hartt.</p>
<p>She thrives on performing and most of those I listed have affiliations with opera companies and encourage their students to participate or put on at least 2 fully staged operas per year themselves.
If anyone attends one of these schools (or your daughter or son does) please let me know what you like- or don't like- about the place. We're also open to hearing about other schools that we may not have thought of so jump right in- any and all help is appreciated!You can also PM me if you'd rather or we can chat via "regular" e-mail .Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>Son is a May '07 Hartt grad with a BM in viola performance. His experience was purely instrumental, and other than performing under Ed Bolkovac's (head of vocal studies) baton for a couple of choral/orchestral combined concerts, he has had no direct experience with the vocal studies division.</p>
<p>He has played in the orchestra in support of a few operatic productions, and has said that the talent pool is first rate and during his tenure has had the pleasure of hearing a number of very exceptional performers.</p>
<p>In general, he was well pleased with the instrumental and music ed departments. As a conservatory within a university setting, there can be as little or as much interaction with non musicians as an individual desires.</p>
<p>He found the overall atmosphere within Hartt to be non-competitive and supportive. </p>
<p>All of the older freshman dorms have been gutted and updated over the last two years, a brand new dorm is scheduled to open this September, and ground has been broken on a new facility to house the Dance, Theater, and Community divisions.</p>
<p>University of Hartford is technically in West Hartford, in a quiet suburban neighborhood, although it is about a mile away from a less than desirable area of Hartford proper.</p>
<p>Our experience is that they were very generous with merit (performance/talent) based aid. There is a university rep on the board with a user's name of HarttAdmissions... you might want to do a search within this forum for "Hartt" and get additional comments.</p>
<p>I'd be happy to answer any specific questions about son's general experiences. Sorry I can't help more with the vocal aspect.</p>
<p>Hello! I am a voice performance major who auditioned at most of those schools over the last year.
CCM- They have a wonderful program. My only problem with them is that the campus was so large. I really wanted a small campus. They also seemed to focus on the MT aspect more. I really enjoyed my sample class that I had there. It was with Karen Lykes (If you are interested in scheduling one).
Oberlin - This is where I'm going next year. I love that the program is mostly undergrad. This means more performance opportunities. The campus is not too big and it's easy to find your way around. The performance facilities are also great. The only down side would be being in such a small town if your daughter prefers the city. If you are looking for a sample lesson try, Lorraine Manz or Daune Mahy.
Bowling Green - This was my safety school. I kind of applied last minute so I can't really tell you too much about the program but the faculty seemed very knowledgable and inviting.
BoCo - This is another very small school but it's right in Boston. They also have a great program. I know a few people who graduated as voice majors and said their training was amazing. Patty Thom is an amazing teacher, everyone there loves her.
New England - I didn't have the chance to visit here before I applied. I fell in love with the school as soon as I arrived although I would prefer it for grad school.</p>
<p>Since your girls a lyric soprano, I strongly recommend Curtis in Philly. Anna Moffo, one of my favorite lyric sopranos studied there. Moffos butterfly is always lovely, but my fav is her Gilda, where you can hear her hauntingly beautiful Caro Nome.</p>
<p>Gualtier Maldè!... nome di lui sì amato,
Scolpisciti nel core innamorato!
Caro nome che il mio cor
Festi primo palpitar,
Le delizie dell'amor
Mi dêi sempre rammentar!
Col pensiero il mio desir
A te ognora volerà,
E pur l'ultimo sospir,
Caro nome, tuo sarà.</p>
<p>Your daughter's current teacher is the best guide as to which teacher (and where) will help her continue the successful vocal path she is currently following. The most important thing is the relationship and comfort your daughter has with the voice faculty and the likelihood that the teacher she prefers will stay there. Good luck.</p>
<p>I think NEC is a dump and you lose the college experience. D (mezzo) just graduated from Rice and auditioned at several of the schools you mentioned.
She feels Indiana and Oberlin (besides Rice, of course) have excellent programs. She said hardly anyone gets into CCM. Same with Curtis- and forget the college experience (which I happen to think is very important).</p>
<p>My D would much prefer a conservatory (despite having top grades and excelling in all Honors and AP courses) ,even if it is based within a larger school, such as Bowling Green. She definitely does not want to consider schools such as Indiana specifically because the grad students are given the great majority of roles and the undergrads hand out programs for 4 years!
Her teacher(Yale & Eastmen trained) has worked with us to pare the last down to the places I have listed, but now it's up to us to find out about current faculty (thanks for the thought about whether or not a particular teacher will remain on the faculty- I hadn't put that question on my list), performance opportunities and living accomodations. Although Oberlin is definitely on the list, she would be much happier in an unrban environment, but again, that all depends again on performance opportunities.
Thank you all for your input- more is welcome- and I will be contacting some of you to talk further.</p>
<p>It is splitting hairs to evaluate which universities offer their music degrees through a School of Music, a College of Music, a Conservatory of Music, or a Department of Music within a College of Fine Arts/Performing Arts etc. The determining and important issue may be who set the curriculum, a comprehensive university committee with emphasis on a general education core curriculum, or the academic music unit. You would need to evaluate the Bachelor of Music curriculums side by side to see what the differences might be. So, Bowling Green may call its music division a conservatory, but it probably does not differ that much from the offerings at one of the other mid-western universities. The University of Michigan does not call its music unit a conservatory, but it is arguably the strongest comprehensive music program in the country,with strength and emphasis in all of the performance areas.</p>
<p>Are there numerous performance opportunities for undergrads at Curtis - compared to other schools? My daughter's voice teacher is a Curtis grad and she does not steer her students there as undergrads. She feels it is an atmosphere that best serves graduate students.</p>
<p>My D will be a sophomore at NEC. The Jordan Hall building is very nice, but the main school building needs to be renovated and the dorms are nothing special. It's in a very urban area, so there is no campus, only 3 buildings. D generally has her lessons down the street at Symphony Hall. Students are required to live in the dorm their first year, and then they generally need to get an apartment after that. Many conservatories have renovated their buildings or built new ones (Peabody, Eastman, CIM, Juilliard), so NEC is a little behind.</p>
<p>If you are looking for that typical college experience with a lovely campus and ivy-covered buildings, then NEC is not for you. OTOH, many of the teachers are top notch and D has friends who turned down Juilliard to go there. Everyone is looking for something different. The only way to figure out whether it's right for your son or daughter is to visit, talk to students who attend there, attend a concert or studio class, and/or have a lesson with a teacher.</p>
<p>rudysmom- the general reaction to NEC is that while the faculty and programs at NEC are top notch, they have a reputation for being less than generous when it comes to merit (talent) and need based aid and the overall facilities are long past the point of needing updating. These are not reasons to necessarily eliminate the school from a shortlist; it is well worth investigating, but may not be the right "fit" for everyone.</p>
<p>My son is strongly considering NEC for grad school, but even though they have one of the strongest viola faculties and chamber program, the aid and facility are still major concerns.</p>
<p>What do people think about the BM vocal performance degree at Boston University (I think they have a connection with Tanglewood), and Rice University (in Houston)? I have heard good things, but am curious to know others experiences...</p>
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<p>BM vocal performance degree at Boston University (I think they have a connection with Tanglewood)>></p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>BU has a great vocal conductor in Ann Howard Jones. In addition to conducting the ensembles at BU, she also conducts at BUTI. The "Tanglewood Connection" with BU is for Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) which is a summer program for high school musicians run on the Tanglewood grounds by BU. The other Tanglewood "student" ensemble is the Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) orchestra which has no connection with Boston University.</p>
<p>My daughter will soon start her third year as a double bass performance major at Oberlin and she loves it there. While the place does have the "middle of a cornfield" image, there is quite a lot going on when school is in session.</p>
<p>Oberlin Opera Theater presents two fully-staged operas per year, in conjunction with one or another of the three school orchestras, and other ensembles as appropriate. The production photos on their website (<a href="http://www.oberlin.edu/operathe/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.oberlin.edu/operathe/index.html</a>) will give you an idea of the kind of repertoire they perform and some of the production values that go into them. The eclectic and somewhat unusual programming is chosen with the needs of undergraduate voices in mind and often plays to particular strengths in Early Music and Contemporary Music at Oberlin.</p>
<p>They are on a 4-1-4 system there, with the month of January being devoted to individual and group projects. One or more of the group projects usually involves a slightly less elaborate, but nonetheless staged and costumed operatic performance. Most summers, they have a program called "Oberlin in Italy" in which students spend a month learning Italian from native speakers and rehearsing and performing an opera in conjunction with a local school of music. See <a href="http://www.oberlin.edu/con/summer//italy/default.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.oberlin.edu/con/summer//italy/default.html</a> for preliminary 2008 information. My daughter participated in this program last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Oberlin is not a good fit for everyone. While it is very cosmopolitan for a small town in Ohio, it cannot offer everything that a major city does. The college is proud of its reputation for putting the liberal in Liberal Arts. I highly recommend an overnight visit while school is in session to get a feel for the place. Some absolutely love the place and others find it too isolated or too quirky for their liking. You should also be aware that they are very particular about the voices that they admit. I have seen them turn down excellent singers solely because they did not need their voice type or fach for the productions they had planned out.</p>
<p>My daughter also took lessons at Curtis while she was in high school. It is an amazing place, different in feel from any of the other conservatories we visited while looking at colleges (including Juilliard, NEC, CIM, Oberlin and Peabody). As I am sure you are aware, they accept perhaps three sopranos in a good year from many extremely talented applicants worldwide. Some years less than that.</p>
<p>As to NEC being a "dump," I can attest that their facilities other than Jordan Hall were much in need of renovation when we visited. The dorm was perhaps the worst I have seen on any campus and the admin/classroom building was dark, dreary and overheated when we stopped by. Even some simple things like a fresh paint job and a bit more lighting would have helped a lot. Dorm prices are outrageously high for very small rooms. Of all the schools that accepted my daughter, they were the only one that did not offer any financial aid. The faculty, however, did appear to be top notch.</p>
<p>Re: the NEC dorm...ALL freshmen are required to live in it. It is truthfully the dumpiest college building of ANY kind we have seen in two college searches (we visited over 30 colleges total). Jordan Hall, however, is quite lovely. NEC also had some very nice and large practice rooms. And as with BassDad, DS didn't receive any finaid from them as he did from his other schools.</p>
<p>I guess my D was one of the lucky ones to get a fairly decent merit scholarship from NEC. Just a word of warning to NEC applicants: you must complete the NEC financial aid application to be considered for ANY type of financial aid - merit or need-based - and the deadline is much earlier than most schools. It might be interesting to call the school's financial aid office to see whether they give out stats on how many students get financial aid and how it's broken down, rather than relying on anecdotal information.</p>
<p>Re: dorms. D has lived in 6 different dorms in the past 5 years. Her worst experience was in the nicest dorm, with a French roommate who didn't know about deodorant and doing laundry. Yes, NEC's is dumpy and needs to be renovated, but it is still quite liveable, and it's only for one year. Basically, a dorm is a dorm is a dorm. If a nice dorm is a major priority, than NEC is probably not the right school for you.</p>
<p>Great information- you folks are really being so helpful, I really appreciate it since I do not have the resourses nor the stable health to permit me to make as many visits as we would otherwise like to.
Lorelai- you make a valid point- any school can label itself as it wishes.I actually am down to working up a sort of "spreadsheet" i order to try to compare programs. What I meant by a "conservatory" type school was one that stressed the music courses as opposed to one that also required a lot of courses selected from the general liberal arts areas. </p>
<p>I'd love to hear more about the undergraduate performance opportunities at Curtis. While their grad programs are legendary, what I know first-hand of the school comes from the area of string instruments.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any comments about Peabody? I have heard that they are etremely tight with financial aid and I think that I will follow RCMAMA's idea of asking them- and NEC- about the percentage of students that actually receive financial aid. Their web site is pretty, but a bit intimidating since it makes me feel as though they really do not want phone calls. Those of you that have visited the campus- how are the facilities there and also at BoCo?</p>
<p>I am glad to hear the honesty about the conditions at NEC. My D encountered some terrible things while attending a well-known summer program and she really can't take residing with cockroaches, not having working laundry facilities and the stress and hassle of repeated moves to different quarters. She actually became physically ill from insecticides used on the campus (we were never informed that the school used them liberally on a regular basis) and is on 30 days of antibiotics as a result of an allergic reaction that infected. It was a hard lesson to learn, but better now than when she was in her freshman year of collge! RCMAMA, why so many dorm moves for your D? I must admit I did love the story about her one room mate-thanks for the laugh!</p>
<p>BassDad- your Oberlin information and links were terrific- Thank you so much! When I perused their list of operas performed over the past years it seems clear to me that the school really considers the talents available to them and puts them to good use. The Italian program will be a big draw for my D, I know. How far is the campus from metropolitan Cleveland? Are the music student housed together or are they permitted to live in the other houses, such as they French-language house? My elder son has a couple of friends who are Oberlin grads and they can not say enough good things about the school so it will be interesting to see how my D likes the campus itself. Their web site gives an excellent overview of the place.</p>
<p>BoCo is still on our list and I am hoping that there is someone on these boards who has a connection there.
If anyone knows more about Crane, I would also love to hear from you. It is even colder there than it is here, but the cost is much less than the others since they are part of the SUNY system.</p>