“Does your kid really WANT to be in the Conservatory Orchestra and Chamber program? AND in a composition writing class, in addition ?”
The answer is yes. He himself found these classes. We just pay for it.
There are many things that he doesn’t want to do. He was state level in squash, and he didn’t want to practice, so we said, give it up. He had the perfect score at AMC8 but has no further interest in math, so we said, give up the AMCs and Math Olympiads. He doesn’t want to think about college admissions, so we said, don’t. He hates preparing for standardized tests, so we said, never mind, go in cold. He wanted us to get him sports waivers in school so that he can do more music in school, so we did.
But he would kill for music. But, here’s the thing, he doesn’t want to be a musician. He knows that unless he devotes 12 hours a day to music he will never be good, so he doesn’t want to. But he wants to continue taking music lessons with the very top teachers, privately.
The plan is his, by the way. It’s written by him in a big white board in his room, and he executes to it (I think). Mostly, we don’t even know where he is as he takes Uber everywhere, to school, back, and to his music things. He just asks us for money every now and then. It’s a folly to think that all kids are alike. Some like structure. In MBTI terms, they are called strong J’s, and my son is an off the charts J.
The only thing we insist on is the bed time. Otherwise he would be up composing music all night. Not acceptable. He also wanted to take 6 courses in school, and we said no f’ing way, take 5. Take the bare minimum that you need to graduate. We are ALL about cutting load. He did insist on taking all honors and APs, and I wish I could talk him out of it. But the kid has a big ego and is super competitive.
If it were up to me, I would cut out the chamber music and the orchestra at the conservatory. I could cut out the cello as well. He is simply not national level there. I would then cut out any music in school. He got into the top level youth orchestra in the conservatory but that’s a travelling one with huge demand, so I said no. I then had a mutiny in my hand. If I were to cut out the rest of the music, there would be so much fighting at home that it won’t be worth it.
During summer he spends all his time in Tanglewood music camp and never even comes home. We just pay for it.
And on top of that he is supposed to add breadth? F’ that.