Composition: choosing a school and faculty mentor

kumakazi
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 02:27:51 +0000

This forum has been so helpful in the past year as I’ve help my son navigating the somewhat crazy process of applying to study composition! I’m finally writing for advice because I just can’t figure this out…is it common practice, or not, to be able to arrange a trial lesson or at least a meeting with the faculty member that the student is most interested in studying with? Once you’re admitted, how does the process of getting matched to your primary teacher work - is that determined before you decide where to go?

My son is in at NEC and U Mich so far, and is very enthusiastic about both. He’s visited both but has not yet had any one-on-one time with the comp faculty, and at NEC there is not even an interview for composition anymore, so he hasn’t even met them. He has emailed to ask some professors at both places, but hasn’t heard back, or at has gotten mixed messages about who he should be contacted (i.e., he emailed the prof, who told him to contact Admissions, who told him to contact the prof directly…). So, is this actually something that is just not done, or do we just need to be more patient with the profs’ presumably busy schedules? Just want to be sure that we’re not being overly pushy/demanding.

My impression is that, with instrumentalists, you are pretty much accepted into a particular person’s studio, so you know before deciding where to go who you’d be studying with. Is it different with composition?

Thank you!