Does anybody have any insight into Northern Arizona U’s music program? Any personal experience?
NAU has an excellent music program. A high percentage of the outstanding music teachers in Arizona come out of NAU.
Thank you. Do you know if it’s primarily for music Ed? How is their classical program? Can’t find any videos of performances online.
I am not familiar with it, so I can’t speak with any authority. There are some things you can do to try and see what the program is like. If you are talking classical performance, you need to look at the faculty for that instrument. So for example, piano, who are the faculty? From there, you can try and see using the web if any of their students have gone on to have a career. Likely they don’t have a lot of faculty on any given instrument (and again, I am talking in general, not this school). They offer a BM degree, so likely they teach the spread of orchestral instruments and piano. The website isn’t great, it can be hard to see at a glance who teaches what.
The other thing I looked at was audition requirements. I looked at violin and piano, which I know what is usually asked, and it isn’t at the level that competitive music schools would ask for. This feeds into a discussion that used to rage here, about is it worth going to a less competitive program, can a student do well there? The answer is not easy,it really depends what the students expectations. If there dream is to come out of here, and audition for a major orchestra , or get into a top chamber group, or get into a top music school for grad school, it may be difficult unless they are that talented going into this and this is affordable. The level of competition and playing in the classical world is so high, the talent levels are so high, that that top level of achievement is a huge gulf, kids are coming into the top programs already playing at a high level.
That doesn’t mean you can’t go to a school like this and make a career out of it as a private teacher, doing gig work, playing in local orchestras, doing work even for advertising and such.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.