Which schools have strong music AND science programs?

<p>Thanks lizschup. My info came from a college guide which stated there were no dedicated performance spaces for vocal/choral (sounds like this is indeed the case) and that the theater was only for full-scale theater productions with no smaller spaces for student productions. Thanks for the info about the voice!</p>

<p>sopranosmom, your post #27 has a lot of great information!</p>

<p>I'll just add that McGill & CMU also require a voice audition CD from which they select candidates to invite for a live audition.</p>

<p>A school that I didn't see mentioned yet is Case Western. They permit ANY combination for a double major; they offer music, theatre, dance, and are strong in the sciences. Essentially on the same campus is Cleveland Institute of Music (a conservatory) and the Cleveland Orchestra - a double degree in performance is available with CIM as well.</p>

<p>Hmmm. Don't know why I didn't think of CWRU. I only went to med school there. I'll pass the info on to "the boss."</p>

<p>Quiltguru,
Everytime I read your name I have to correct myself - I keep seeing Guiltguru. Anyway, if you want someone to speak with about voice at Wash U I would recommend John Stewart. Here's a link to his bio and e-mail address. <a href="http://artsci.wustl.edu/%7Emusic/people/faculty/stewartjn.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://artsci.wustl.edu/~music/people/faculty/stewartjn.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>There are also plans to rebuild or remodel the Mallinkrodt student center where the Edison Theater is. I'm wondering if they have any plans within that for vocal performance - I haven't really kept up with all their building and renovation.</p>

<p>The Cleveland Institute at Case western is a Conservatory level program that will require auditions and be a BM level program in Voice.Thus, OP's D would have the same difficulties fitting in the schedule of a performance major plus science major.
As far as Wash U goes,my D will be starting a Phd program there in Musicology next year. While they have no dedicated facilities, they have plenty of performing venues.While she was there interviewing,she saw a student opera production on the Graham Chapel stage.They draw their performance faculty from the St Louis Opera company and the St Louis Symphony.The musicology professor she's going to study with is world class reknowned in his field.They have a free standing music library,music classroom and practice room building and a really charming (old house)faculty office building,all in their own small enclave.It's a small department,friendly and tight knit.Most of the dept turned out for the opera production.They're world class in the sciences and their merit scholarship opportunities are good.</p>

<p>The more I think about it the more its probably the right kind of choice school for the OP's child.The conservatory level music program probably just isnt the right fit with the science major.</p>

<p>Case offers a BA in Music and a BS in Music Education - as well as Masters and PhD programs. For combinations, you can select a music minor, music major with a minor in any subject, a double major, or a double degree. A BM would be from CIM. Auditions at CWRU are in your favor as they are used for scholarship determination.</p>

<p><a href="http://music.case.edu/ba_music.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://music.case.edu/ba_music.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://music.case.edu/jointprog.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://music.case.edu/jointprog.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just an FYI...the course requirement for Music Education begin in the freshman year for any program worth its salts. It is very very hard to double major in Music Education and anything else. The requirements for off campus school based activities (e.g. observations, student teaching etc) make this hard. Add to that the ensemble and private lesson requirements that go with any music degree and you are occupying a huge amount of time. If you plan to double major in music education, you should probably plan on extra time in college beyond four years.</p>

<p>Heck, fellow posters, it's hard to double major in any two subjects, and the furher apart the subject are, the harder it is. So what's new?</p>

<p>Truth is, given how frequently college students change majors, I think we should lay off the difficulty issue. These things have a way of sorting out once an kid starts college. Now is the time for exploration and, yes, dreams. A whole life of reality awaits. </p>

<p>I say that if the kid wants it, go for it and don't worry about how tough it will be etc. You never know until you try, and keeping options open via a double major at the start can be a great way to proceed. Finally, a lot of kids take five years for a single major....</p>

<p>Personally, I think the "double major" thing is, more often than not, just the college version of collecting APs.</p>

<p>I think we could do a big favor to our kids by letting them know that, in the big scheme of things, it usually doesn't matter one iota what you major in</p>

<p>newmassdad, I absolutely agree. Go for it! Major in whatever you want! My med school roomate had a BA in philosophy from Carleton, a MM in instrumental performance from U of M, spent a couple of years touring Europe playing recitals, came back to SUNY to pick up her med school pre-reqs and THEN went to med school. I wish I had the $$ and the courage to do the same. </p>

<p>Anyway, my D heard by e-mail from several colleges on the list today about her inquiry and I thought I'd share what they said:</p>

<p>Oberlin: Consider double degree program OR apply for the conservatory and pick up second major at the college
Carnegie Mellon: Only if you're willing to spend 6 years to get one degree
Skidmore: 50% of our students double major...no big deal
Williams: 28% of our students double major and some triple major... bring it on
Pomona: Can do it, but will need to give up electives; schedule could be tight
Brandeis: 30% double major often in disparate majors: no sweat</p>

<p>interesteddad, the double major thing becomes more important when one of the majors is music. Another major can actually lead to employability after college! D decided against double majoring and is going for a straight B.Music.<br>
Re: Case Western. D applied to Case and CIM, was accepted to both with nice merit money from Case. CIM is quite expensive. D liked the Case and CIM programs-together or separate, but got into her first choice school, Rice.</p>

<p>Quiltguru, has your daughter given any thought to the U. of Delaware? Although it's probably not in the same category as some of the other schools you've mentioned, it has an excellent school of Music as well as a renowned school of science. DD has several friends who are double majors with all kinds of odd combinations, and apparently this is not considered unusual or un-do-able. UD has several excellent choral groups, one of which tours both nationally and internationally, and there are two theater clubs that are open to all interested persons regardless of major. There is also the opera workshop for serious singers/voice majors. Although DD is an elementary ed. major, she has been singing since she arrived freshman year, and her voice teacher for the last year has been truly amazing. </p>

<p>As for double-majoring at Hopkins/Peabody, don't even think about it. DS is completing his second BMus and his MMus at Peab. this coming year, and he says you'd have to be nuts to try to double with Hopkins. There aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done, and he only knows one person who has succeeded (and he was in the recording arts program, not a performance program).</p>

<p>mini, when we were first looking at small LACs where liberal arts candidates could take piano lessons, we had considered the differences between Williams and Swarthmore. Williams has piano faculty who give instruction, and they are probably excellent, but there are not a lot to choose from, whereas s preferred the situation at Swarthmore where he could choose from instructors in the Philadelphia area. For a student who has studied piano for over 10 years the fit between instructor and student is going to be more of an issue than it is for beginner or a more casual player. Brandeis has options similar to Swarthmore, being a suburban school near a city offering a wealth of music instructors. I don't mean this as a criticism of the Williams music program as it has a lot going for it, it's just another something to consider: NOT having instructors on the permanent faculty, if your're an urban or suburban school, is not necessarily a negative attribute.</p>

<p>"NOT having instructors on the permanent faculty, if your're an urban or suburban school, is not necessarily a negative attribute."</p>

<p>I can't comment on the piano faculties as I don't know them. I did comment that, in vocal performance, while Williams had some fine adjuncts, they had no permanent member of the faculty, other than the choral conductor, who taught vocal performance (same at Swarthmore.) But for someone who is has career aspirations, or graduate school aspirations, not having someone on the permanent faculty is a HUGE negative attribute. Good pianos teachers are a dime a dozen, virtually everywhere. But the permanent faculty act as your advisors and mentors, provide the input into the needs of the total academic program, provide the links to graduate schools, arrange the masterclasses and your participation in them, write your recommendations, and are what attract like-minded students. The lack of permanent faculty basically tells you that this is a subject area in which they are not particularly looking to attract students. I mean you can study Hindi at Smith because there are north Indian native speakers at town, but it would hardly be a place to choose for South Asian studies!</p>

<p>In my town, there are wonderful piano teachers who are adjuncts to the local community college. It is hardly a recommendation</p>

<p>newmassdad
the issue here is not the ability to double major it is the unique demands of the music/science double major.
How do you reconcile the demands of an ensemble whose rehearsal time is 6-8P.M. when the lab hours in your science class are at the same time? You can't drop the ensemble b/c its required for your major.and you can't drop the science b/c its taken in a sequence where if you miss the semester, you screw up the following one.
Not all majors have such set,demanding hours.There's only so many hours in a day,and your choral or musical ensemble instructor is not going to change the rehearsal hours to fit you when 50 others may be involved.</p>

<p>mini I was just pointing out that for someone at a quite accomplished level who basically wanted to be able to continue lessons while getting a liberal arts education, it would be an asset to have music teachers who were associated with a conservatory or a world class symphony.

[quote]
Good pianos teachers are a dime a dozen, virtually everywhere.

[/quote]
Have to disagree with you there. Adequate piano teachers may be a dime a dozen and perfectly suitable for students who don't have a serious background in music. But excellent teachers such as those affiliated with the Curtis Institute of Music in Philly or the New England Conservatory in Boston are not. Many kids from urban areas have studied with the likes of these teachers growing up.
At Swarthmore for instance, there is a permanent faculty member who is a chamber music coach and there are opportunities, supported by the college, to arrange lessons with a teacher of choice from the area. The chamber coach or another faculty from the department can still serve as advisor and mentor while the student takes actual lessons from the best match he can find. Similar opportunities exist for students at Brandeis who can tap into the talent in the Boston area for the actual lessons and then have the faculty advisor be a different member of the music department.</p>

<p>cathymee,</p>

<p>Your comments are precisely on target, and exactly what the prospective double major student needs to sort out. We can't. We don't know, nor should we, all the permutations that might exist at a uni to accomodate all the varying demands on a student. That said, it is an uncommon institution that has so little flexibility that these obstacles cannot be overcome with some effort. How much effort? Depends on the kid, the school and the major - all things that make armchair advising from afar so risky.</p>

<p>Why do we persist in trying to discourge kids from trying something challenging, adventuresome and out of the box? Why always play up the negative?</p>

<p>Music performance programs(not BA music),as I and others have stated are NOT flexible.It has nothing to do with being an uncommon institution.They are accomodating large groups of students who must meet in one place at one time.Ensembles rehearse at hours where they do not interfere with class times,thus the late afternoon or evening hours.Studio hours for the various performance faculty are prescribed according to that faculty persons available hours.
If you are in a choral group readying a performance for a certain date,how are they going to be flexible about the rehearsal hours? Perhaps it would be the science faculty that would have to bend to the whims of the music department in that case.
I would love to hear of a student who could combine performance studies with another demanding major,like science or pre med or engineering.Yes you can fit one in (with perserverance) thats a straightforward go to class,take tests,write papers major.Minors, you can accomodate.BA's in Music can accomodate other majors,as D did when she dropped from BM Performance to BA MUsic.
I'm not being discouraging, just being realistic.Been there with D,done that.</p>

<p>I've learned a heckuva lot about this music/science stuff the past few days and I've learned that my D knows more about it and what she wants than I do. </p>

<p>Schools (including conservatories, major universities with strong music like Indiana, Northwestern, UMich, etc) who have a BM in music performance actively discourage double majors. These institutions view the performance major as a "pre-professional" major and expect 100% commitment. Even these types of schools who SAY they offer a double degree (e.g., the BSA, Bachelor in Science and Arts from Carnegie Mellon) actually do not or make it very difficult to complete. Only a rare student every several years completes it. And, as CMU wrote to my D, they do it not in 4 years, but in 5 1/2 to 6 years to get one degree. Oberlin and Lawrence are the two combined LAC/Conservatories that have well-established programs to do this and award two degrees a BA and BM in 5 years. They each accept about 25 students per year as freshmen, but not that many complete the program. Most convert solely to the conservatory. Financial aid may not carry over to the 5th year.</p>

<p>My D definitely wants a BA with a double major in chemistry/physics/molecular bio (a little hazy about the specifics) and music with concentration in vocal performance (this is her "instrument"). This combo in a BA degree seems best managed at a LAC and some LACs are better than others. We're still sorting this part of the puzzle out. Some LACs (I'm including CWRU and JHU here) have relationships with conservatories (CIM and Peabody, respectively) but the double major/degree requires enrollment in (and tuition at) both. It is possible to major in a non-music and study privately with conservatory faculty, but this is not what my D wants to do because she wants exposure to theory and music history. Some LACs (Swarthmore and others) have an open door for this kind of double major AND can assist in private study with someone from a conservatory. Some LACs may offer private lessons, but the science program is strong while the music program is overall pretty weak (WUSTL). My D wants a strong program in both. Three of the Ivy's have 5 year combined BA/MM programs: Yale with itself, Columbia with Julliard, and Harvard with NEC. The student has to be accepted to both to study privately at the conservatory and lesson fees are usually at least partly subsidized by tuition to the Ivy. Students can be admitted to the conservatory any time from freshman through the end of junior year.</p>

<p>Hope this has helped some of the other families out there looking at similar options for their kids.</p>

<p>Newmassdad- it is similar to the flexibility that would be likely if the star quarterback also wanted to run cross country. Ain't gonna happen- nor SHOULD it necessarily happen. At some level of expertise and commitment, you have to make choices. That was a tough thing for D to accept- but accept it she did.</p>