@compmom:
I doubt many composition programs in the US have faculty who are teaching classical or romantic composition, or are ‘soft core’, at least among the programs I have seen, it seems like most of them are firmly in the ‘modern’ era, for better or worse. I have heard a lot of new compositions from programs like NEC, Yale School of Music, Juilliard (for one thing my son was part of New York Youth symphony, that has new commissioned pieces every cycle and he was in it for several years), and all of them were in the ‘modern’ genre, either strongly atonal, 12 tone, minimalist, some mixed genres, but I can’t think the last time I heard a student composition piece that was neo classical, neo romantic or ‘soft’. I am sure they may exist, but the big complaint against the composition programs, that has been written and talked about in the music world for a lot of years, that they were very dogmatic…that said, I also have heard it is changing, that the rigid dogmatists who turned modern music into another form, but I think the OP’s perceptions of US composition programs, that they were conservative/neo classical/‘soft’, is not true, that is all. I really hope the hallmark of composition programs has changed and that there is a wide variety, I have heard pieces by some of the kids of people on here that makes me think it is, which is good…my own thought it that people like Boulez and Babbitt did a lot of damage in terms of composition, and it has taken a lot of years for their influence to wane.