<p>I can't believe four years have vanished and my daughter is auditioning for conservatories yet again! Anyone else applying to grad schools for opera?</p>
<p>D finishes her MM this spring. Enjoy your limited experience during the grad school process. The only input I gave was financial advice…since it was her finances and not mine, she was a lot more interested in the finer points .
Hopefully your D has been a great networker as those cross country couches really come in handy during the auditions trips!</p>
<p>Hi ABlestMom. I can’t believe it’s 4 years either. DD is taking at least one year off before grad school so the auditions aren’t starting yet. She hopes to piece together enough work in music to sustain her, take lessons and get ready to audition another year. Keep us up to date with your DD’s progress.</p>
<p>I can’t believe four years have gone by either. My son is also applying to grad school for opera studies. He has four auditions lined up so far. Not sure how he is going to swing the airfare, etc. We will offer limited help. But we’ve told him from day one, grad school is on him.</p>
<p>Could you please let us know where your soon to be grads are attending and how have they liked their school? My D is about to embark on a similar path. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I pm’d you HMH</p>
<p>I’m currently applying for my masters in voice and it’s so weird to think that I graduate in four months!</p>
<p>My son is a senior at TCU in Fort Worth. He will be graduating in May with a double major, music and technical writing and a minor in psychology.
He is very pleased with his studies and has sung with the Fort Worth Opera chorus. TCU will be building a new school of music in the next few years, so I expect the music program to expand. Their recent football win in the Rose Bowl will hopefully bring in lots of alumni money and I’m sure will increase the interest and applications to the school in general.</p>
<p>Story of my life, where did the 4 years go? I graduated hs in 06’ and since then I’ve moved to New York, attended a somewhat prestigious conservatory, left said school, took a year off and nannied full time, decided I’d try to audition for schools for musical theater, failed, moved to florida, and now I’m finishing my voice degree and I started my music ed degree (while teaching voice and working a FABULOUS job in retail 20-30 hours a week).
A lot can happen in 4 years…</p>
<p>Hi musicamusica…yes the parental grad support is significantly less than the undergrad help for sure. Parental anxiety is still the same though, lol! Financially hoping for a nice package but we shall see. She got alot of undergrad scholarship so she’s still got some left for graduate school.</p>
<p>Hey Singersmom07 (soon to be 11, lol). Sounds like your daughter has a terrific plan in place. Keep us posted to what she is up to.</p>
<p>Gentleharp - sounds like we are in it together 
DD applied to 8 schools and has 4 auditions and 4 more to hear from. Can’t wait till we get actually dates in place so she can start booking those plane tickets.</p>
<p>coloratura_as - congrats on your soon to be graduation status and best of luck on your grad school decisions. Do you have most of your auditions in place yet?</p>
<p>tinysinger - isn’t it amazing how many different paths there are to a career in music? I love that there is no set pattern that has to be adhered to in order to achieve success. It seems like the “failures” or wrong turns in your career are the exact reason why you ended up in the perfect place - one you may have never even dreamed of but love nonetheless. Best of luck and may you continue to find much joy in your life.</p>
<p>“parental anxiety is the same”
I can honestly say that once the process was in her hands, I lost all that travel, audition, and school acceptance anxiety. Sure, I get the occasional twinge about being the parent of a performing artist in an uncertain economy, but many in our family and in our circle of friends have depended on the performing arts for their livelihood for some time—so D is pretty well versed in the pitfalls and uncertainty in “the biz”.<br>
We talked about her relative potential and the cost of an MM degree several times during her senior year. She decided that if she was not good enough or ready enough to get the teachers she wanted with a substantial amount of fellowship money, then a performance degree in grad school was not for her and it would be time to move on (with no regrets). That decision before the process started was liberating for all of us. </p>
<p>The best advice she got came from her undergrad teacher who encouraged her to get as many opinions as she could from coaches and teachers outside of her university before the grad process began . Since she was a January graduate and had that spring and summer to work and travel(before the winter grad audition hoo-haa) she invested in some significant lessons and coaching sessions. It was really helpful for D to get new sets of ears to listen to her and give her some relatively unbiased criticism and direction.</p>
<p>Hi Able! My son is somewhat in the same boat. He may have an opportunity to go to “work”. If that’s the case he will forgo grad school. So it’s kind of a pins a needles thing until it gets sorted out. Hopefully by mid February we’ll know something. It’s kind of crazy and mixed up so I am not counting on ANYTHING! But the good thing about grad school is that you can go anytime. A lot of people recommend taking a year or two off anyway.</p>
<p>I am just waiting to hear from one school. I have auditions set up at CCM, Maryland, Rice and Curtis comes to Oberlin.</p>
<p>Hey srw!!! Congrats on possible “work”- hope it goes through for him! Keep me posted!!!</p>
<p>Hi coloratura_as - sounds similar to my DD - she has auditions at CCM, Rice, Mannes and San Francisco. She’s waiting on Curtis, Yale, Juilliard and BU. Best of luck and hope you two meet up!</p>
<p>musica … good for you to have a lessened anxiety! I wish, but it’s just not in my nature. Luckily I keep it all to myself and DH, lol.</p>
<p>Thankfully DD has a fabulous team of teachers and coaches surrounding her and guiding her, because I have had absolutely no experience in the music world. I have been learning it through lots of research and talking with other knowledgeable people over the course of many years but I still feel woefully ignorant. All I want is for her to be happy in whatever path she chooses to do.</p>