Hello,
This forum along with others has been so helpful. Many people constantly speak of the “music ed” departments for Crane and Fredonia. But no one seems to mention students that are performance majors only. Has anyone had experience with any of these schools, specifically for violin who attended for performance major only? Which school has the strongest orchestra and prepares them for orchestral auditions/grad school after graduation?
I don’t know now, but the a great violinist when DS applied in 2003 went to Stony Brook. At the time, there was a terrific violin applied teacher there.
IMHO, the “best” is the one that has an applied teacher your kid connects with, and good orchestral ensembles.
I’ve heard that grad students are teaching the undergrads at Stony Brook. It is more focused on the Grad students from research I have done…but is excellent for them.
Those grad students are talented…or they wouldn’t be there. But this is your musicians’s choice!
They should be discussing options with their current private violin teacher, and their orchestra conductor. Those folks know your student’s level of playing, and likely the faculty at these SUNY colleges.
Being from NYS- Just wanted to say our DD was made a great offer from Oberlin which seemed very aware of our income. Oberlin closer than NYC for us. And a great violin program with very good teachers. She chose to go elsewhere, but the cost was similar to SUNY schools after financial aid. Might be worth a look. Bard might also be worth a look as they are in state and seem also income aware. (It does demand dual degree, though, I think.)
Agree that her private teacher should be helping. If not, or they don’t seem to have knowledge of options, maybe that’s telling about their general ability to prepare a student for college applications and audition.
Thank you for sharing that. My daughter is going to try for Oberlin, but it is probably a huge reach for her.
Purchase has a conservatory culture and is close to NYC, so excellent faculty who perform. Crane is also excellent , great faculty and performance, and may be a little more supportive. Fredonia comes after those in my (online) investigations over time. My kid only applied to Purchase amonthte SUNY’s (and yes Oberlin! ).
Crane has always had the strongest reputation among the SUNYs for music. They have Clarkson and St. Lawrence right nearby, but otherwise it is far from everything. Fredonia known more for the education angle, but I’ve known several people that have raved about the school and college town. My college roommate played them in rugby, and every year his #1 wish was that Fredonia was an away game.
Happy students play better. Visit them all.
My kid, who now has a doctorate in music, only applied to Purchase. Not sure I agree that Crane has the best reputation but it certainly has an excellent reputation. Maybe things have changed and you know more about these schools at present.
I did some diddling around looking at the faculty (I threw in Stony Brook as a comparison as well).
Fredonia is more music education from what I can tell.
With Crane, they have a reputation as a music school and the violin teacher there is interesting, she has credentials and interestingly is a crossover artist (she does fiddling, too). They have produced some talented musicians and singers.
Purchase is closer to NYC. They basically if the website is to be believed only one violin teacher but she is a very high level musician, and I think she is the artistic director of Orpheus Chamber orchestra as as well as a violinist. She is a really, really talented violinist, seriously so (this I know directly, she went to Juilliard pre college with my son and was friends with him) .Is she a good teacher? That I don’t know. She does know the music world inside and out. Question also is how many students does she teach? Or are they using grad students to teach? Purchase being closer to NYC can mean exposure to the music scene there, plus I know they have musical events on campus. Purchase also emphasizes ensemble playing strongly, and that is a plus.
With Stony Brook there is a red flag from reading their website. The UG program is a BA (which in of itself is not bad, it is just less intensive generally than a BM) but the real issue is another poster is right, the teaching is done by grad students, albeit usually DMA students. The faculty, which is name heavy, teaches at the grad level which tells me they don’t emphasize UG as much.
Grad students teaching UG violinists is problematic. First of all, you might have a situation where you don’t have one teacher, where more than one grad student is teaching. But more importantly, teaching violin is not like teaching calculus 1 or intro to American History, which in academic land is usually taught by grad students. No matter how good the grad student is, they likely don’t have that much teaching experience and IMO that is a real crapshoot. You want someone who has taught some length in time, people who have been chamber musicians or really any kind of professional level of music have likely done outreach , master classes, where they have taught. It is a skill that requires practice. That doesn’t mean there aren’t grad students who are great teachers, someone who is an accomplished violinist getting an AD or PHd might work out great bc they have experience teaching likely, but it still is problematic.
. Purchase because of its near location to NYC has things going for it, and at least based on her ability as a violinist Abby Fayette would be worth looking into. It is a small program and could be difficult to get into because of that, they claim a 20% acceptance rate but it could be much harder on violin.
Crane has a reputation and the teacher there looks interesting,seems to have credentials, but it also is kind of an island of music.
If I had to rank it I would say Purchase, Crane then Stony Brook for a UG.
This is where homework comes in (and hopefully people with inside knowledge can give you better info), there could be people who had kids study at Stony Brook who said the UG experience was great. I am reacting simply from reading their website, and the way they describe the BA, it throws off questions to me how intensive or good the UG experience would be.
Purchase being closer to NYC is a plus, and Abby is a extremely talented violinist who has done a lot.
Crane has a solid music program and the teacher has some serious credentials, so that part is good if she is doing the teaching. Crane being in Potsdam is more isolated musically, but hopefully there would be a lot of opportunities to perform there as well as see other peformances. Like Purchase, they seem to emphasize ensemble playing, which is huge.
One thing I highly recommend, when you have limited faculty in your area of study, try and get a sample lesson from them. You need to see if your D can work with them, and them, her. Violin teaching is alchemy IME, and that fit is so huge.
As always, these are just my opinions and observations. One thing to keep in mind is these days the UG is almost the way a pre college prep program was a generation or 2 ago. With some rare examples, most musicians these days get a grad degree (or 2 or 3),and there is a good reason. The level of playing on violin out there is extremely high, it is light years better than a couple of generations ago and the competition in the real world for things like orchestra positions is extreme so grad school gives them time to bring their playing up to the highest level they can achieve. I would basically count on grad school being in a music students future if they are aiming into getting into a higher level orchestra or making it in the ensemble world professionally . This isn’t so great with having once again find a program, apply, audition, etc etc and then how to pay for it (fortunately, many grad programs are better funded than UG ones). The good part about it is where you went UG may not mean what it once did, that today you can go to a mid tier program and then get into a top level grad program and jump out into the real world from there. Obviously your playing level going into UG matters, and how hard you work in UG, how motivated you are, still matters a great deal. If you get into a mid tier program because your playing isn’t quite at the elite level, you have work to do to catch up.
Obviously, as always, this is just my thoughts and opinions, in the end it as always comes down to the student and what works for them, financially, playing level wise and the like.
This was really helpful Old Music. Thank you so much!
Abi Fayette looks pretty impressive!
We visited purchase and my son felt like it didn’t have a classical music feel to it- seemed to be more jazz , avant garde, or music tech people. There were people making music by banging coffee cups on light poles and scraping forks on the ground… The dorm was a giant cloud of marijuana smoke… My son didn’t feel like he could fit in there. This was just our exeprienec from one visit, maybe we caught it on a bad day.
Can you explain this please? Financial aid was available at the undergrad level at many schools, but in our experience funding for grad level was mainly in doctoral programs, with some exceptions. And even with a teaching stipend, and free tuition, living expenses could be hard to meet.
Very interesting. Thank you.
I can only talk of my own experiences, but UG from what I saw and heard from others didn’t offer much money. The admissions people at the schools outright admitted that even merit aid was tied to need. When my son did grad school there was a lot more money involved, every package he got was near full tuition (outside Juilliard, which wasn’t a surprise at all). It wasn’t like they considered him independent, they still expected parent involvement, it was just a different mindset I found. And from what i hear from people with kids in school, or what my son has seen in his groups experience with music students, that hasn’t changed much.
It could also be it is different for comp students than instrumental, my son is a violinist so perhaps that played a role. Obviously I can’t speak for every program or every anything, but am pretty sure other kids saw the same thing in many places.
Agree to disagree. For us undergrad at an Ivy was free. Doctoral program stipend was nowhere near actual living expenses. Master’s programs lacked financial aid. I guess you are referring to merit at conservatories.
Yes, I was talking music schools, and my experience with them is funding is often better on the grad level than undergrad. Doctoral programs and the teaching stipend from what i know is different, and I can’t argue about the financing there, have heard it is rough. The difference with grad programs I believe is that they are giving merit aid more freely because the programs I am talking about are even more selective in grad school than undergrad (it doesn’t mean all programs, back then and hopefully it has changed, Juilliard with merit tied it to need at both undergrad and grad levels and some other schools were like that too, if there was any parental involvement they did basically the same thing) .
Problem is even with near full ride on scholarship the cost of living can be heavy.
This is true of post grad residencies, the stipends with them in some places barely cover the cost of health insurance if the person needs to buy it through the school, let alone rent, food, etc.
Don’t want to continue a tangent. We are talking apples and oranges here. Back to the original question! Purchase for conservatory culture and proximity to NY or Crane with its excellence and supportive culture- from online discussions not personal experience.