<p>UCLA and USC.</p>
<p>During the six or so years I spent there, eons ago, MANY big name bands came to "little old Ithaca". They played at Barton Hall at Cornell, as well as some other venues in Ithaca. Ithaca is (was) considered a regional cultural center for the Finger lakes area and surrounding areas. The bands that didn't hit Cornell still hit Buffalo, Syracuse or Rochester.</p>
<p>The longest running live folk music broadcast in the US, Bound For Glory, is still going on weekly from Cornell's Annabel Taylor Hall and is broadcast live on WVBR. </p>
<p>The Ithaca area is one of the hotbeds of the old time music revival in the US. It was home to the rock group Orleans, and various other groups including Donna the Buffalo. (Look them up).</p>
<p>Folk musicians emerging from the Ithaca area include:
Peter Yarrow,Richard Farina, Harry Chapin, John Roberts,Tony Barrand,
Bill Steele, Peggy Haine, George Ward, Harry Aceto, Martin Simpson and
Mark Rust. </p>
<p>In the area of oldtime music and bluegrass, Ithaca was home to The Highwoods String Band, The Horseflies, and the bluegrass band Country Cooking. Musicians from Ithaca & vicinity who made names for themselves in these areas of music include:</p>
<p>Tony Trischka, Pete Wernick, Mac Benford, Walt Koken, Jeff Claus, Howie Bursen, Hank Sapoznik, Ken Perlman, Russ Barenberg, John Miller, Tara Nevins and Judy Hyman.</p>
<p>Oberlin has also produced a number of prominent folk & old-time musicians, and some active indie rockers I believe. Music is everywhere at that place, in various forms.</p>
<p>While there are many places that fit your criteria, I will comment on the one I know best...Boston. I went to both college (Tufts) and grad school (Harvard) in Boston and the music scene was thriving....all types, all levels, all kinds of venues. I am not sure with the change in drinking age if that would affect access to some of the places we heard music at but it would not affect coffee houses or concerts and the like. My husband, who also went to Tufts and graduate school in Boston and whom I met at 18 and married at 20, is very very very into music, both playing and listening and I'd say going to listen to music was our frequent activity while living in Boston for college and graduate school. There are also tons of colleges in the Boston area and so there is much going on for folks that age, in the music vein. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>LA and NY schools are prime</p>
<p>But I would say NY schools just because they have CBGB's and a great transportation system.</p>
<p>Berkely is the best. how good are u in music?</p>
<p>I would have to mention Memphis and Rhodes College. Beale Street and the whole downtown area around Beale get to rockin pretty good. I compare it quite favorably to Austin's Sixth Street entertainment district. In fact , I prefer it.</p>
<p>What about the University of Pennsylvania? Philly has the Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute of Music, tons of jazz and other concerts going on every night...</p>
<p>UT for sure. Vanderbilt also. I would imagine you could find a good music scene in just about any large city though.</p>
<p>Northwestern!!!</p>
<p>University of Texas - AUSTIN</p>
<p>ANY SCHOOL IN BOSTON. </p>
<p>Not collegiate yet meself, but I live in the city and I can tell you, we've got a good scene. Lots of different genres, none of this all-one-sound stuff; there's a lot of punk or "punk" and we high schoolers out in the suburbs have been trying to start a ska revival lately...but there's all sorts of music. Whatever you like, we've got, except country (there is one radio station, and according to my friend from Arkansas it is terrible). Plus since there are so many colleges you've got college bands coming out of the walls...</p>
<p>Found references to a Rolling Stone ranking from 2003, but couldn't find the article directly.......here's what I've pieced together.....lots of holes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Athens
2.
3.</li>
<li>Chapel Hill</li>
<li>Madison</li>
<li></li>
<li>Ann Arbor</li>
<li>Eugene</li>
<li>Gainesville</li>
</ol>
<p>at the risk of resurrecting such a dated thread, I just came across a great article in Rolling Stone that addresses at least the good music scene part of my OP. Looks like things considered include venues, record stores, festivals, bands, radio stations (college & other) & more. So here are the rankings, sorted by city/town with local colleges/universities mentioned:</p>
<ol>
<li>Seattle</li>
<li>U Washington</li>
<li><p>Cornish College of the Arts</p></li>
<li><p>Chapel Hill/Raleigh/Durham NC</p></li>
<li><p>Duke</p></li>
<li><p>UNC</p></li>
<li><p>Detroit</p></li>
<li><p>Wayne State</p></li>
<li><p>Austin</p></li>
<li><p>UT</p></li>
<li><p>Nashville</p></li>
<li><p>Middle Tenn State</p></li>
<li><p>Vanderbilt</p></li>
<li><p>Belmont</p></li>
<li><p>St Louis</p></li>
<li><p>Wash U</p></li>
<li><p>San Francisco</p></li>
<li><p>SF State</p></li>
<li><p>SF Conservatory of Music</p></li>
<li><p>Athens, Ga</p></li>
<li><p>Univ of Georgia</p></li>
<li><p>Minneapolis</p></li>
<li><p>U Minn, Twinn Cities</p></li>
<li><p>Portland, Or</p></li>
<li><p>Lewis & Clark</p></li>
<li><p>Reed</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also mentioned, but not ranked, are "Best Lil' College Towns":
- New Bunswick, NJ.......Rutgers
- Lawrence, Kansas....UK
- Burlington, Vt......UVm
- Ithaca, NY.....Cornell & Ithaca College
- State College, Pa.......Penn State</p>
<p>"Best Music Programs" listed are:
- Berklee College of Music, Boston
- Oberlin
- Julliard
- Full Sail Real World Education, Orlando
- U Southern Cal</p>
<p>.....by the write-up, this latest list includes both music performance & music production.</p>
<p>University of Rochester has strong music dept and of course Eastman. There are always musical performances to attend. Rochester as a city cannot compare to others mentioned in previous posts.</p>
<p>Yep, Berklee College is the center of f the Boston music scene, the music scen doesn't go out to the whole area, so if you're looking at BC, Brandeis, or Tufts, I'd look else where, but Berklee, BU, and Northeastern are filled with music.</p>
<p>strong academic schools that are known in the music area are...</p>
<p>Oberlin (very good music program)
Indiana University - Bloomington
Northwestern
Columbia (if you can do the juilliard program as well thats top notch)
Tufts (with boston conservatory)
Harvard (with NEC)</p>
<p>and im pretty sure penn has no real affiliation with curtis but if it did...curtis is definitely the best school for instrumental performance and if you found out that they do have some kind of connection then that would be HOT haha.</p>
<p>Boston's music scene is BOOMING. Seriously, I've been following it for the past 2 years.</p>
<p>Kenyon in Gambier, Ohio is a good bet for both.</p>
<p>The price of tickets on top of the hill behind the Greek is pretty cheap . . . </p>
<p>I don't think we get discounts, but I would be all over that if we did. We get massive discounts for anything going on in Zellerbach, which houses everything from the Kirov Ballet to John Cleese to Ravi Shankar to Dave Brubeck. There you have it, folks, most of what I'm going to be seeing in Zellerbach (which is amazing). Also, getting to SF is fairly easy, and concerts are always going on. It's even possible (although somewhat of a hassle) to get to the Shoreline Amphiather, which is right near Palo Alto, through public transportation.</p>
<p>Athens GA
Austin TX
Boston MA
Chapel Hill NC
Chicago IL
Los Angeles CA
New York NY
Portland OR
San Francisco CA
Seatle WA</p>