Hopkins/Peabody vs. Northwestern

musicprnt
Sun, 10 Apr 2016 16:43:01 +0000

To be honest, I wouldn’t dismiss Bienen like that, Northwestern is a place where a lot of kids who are musically talented but also are academically up there go to get a dual degree, a number of the kids from Juilliard pre college for example end up in programs like that. I can’t speak to the viola faculty at either school, but I think you would find that at Northwestern you would see a lot of top level players, it could easily IMO (and it is that) rival Peabody.

Not saying to go to Northwestern or Peabody, just saying don’t assume Peabody is necessarily better musically, I suspect that Bienen is likely as a whole as good or maybe even better than Peabody at this point on average. Obviously, factors like the studio play into it. I have also heard the JHU/Peabody program is not easy logistically, and that should factor into things.

Wish you luck, if it were my son I would tell him to treat the two programs as if musically they were on the same level, and make the decision on things like studio, the campus and so forth.