Piano At Swarthmore?

mini
Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:27:23 +0000

“Mini, what are some of those 10 top notch liberal arts colleges with great music programs?”

It’s a great question, but not a simple one. Some LACs do not have performance majors at all. And some of these have fine performance opportunities, and some very little. Some schools have strong composition/theory faculty, and some very little. Some have little opera programs, and some none. Some have JYA connections to strong music programs abroad (Scripps, for example is connected to the IES program in Milan, which is headed by a composer, which in turn has connections to La Scala, and the Giusseppe Verdi Conservatory) and some have none. You really have to kick the tires, and what is right for one is not going to be right for another. Size counts, too (the music faculty at Swarthmore is tiny, even by LAC standards).

Rather than provide a blow-by-blow on each (because the needs and fit for every student is going to be different), let me name 10 LACS which I have no doubt have overall stronger music programs than Swarthmore, and then you can do your own due diligence:

Scripps (especially on the performance side), Pomona, St. Olaf’s (VERY strong), Oberlin (caveat - if you are not doing the Conservatory side of things, you need to check out the music major VERY carefully to ensure you can get what you need), Lawrence, Vassar, Williams (very strong in composition, and two student symphony orchestras), Wesleyan (best known for jazz and ethnomusicology), Bard (President is a conductor, faculty is awesome), Smith (where my d. decided to go after being accepted by a bunch of these - new opera consortium, strong theory/composition), Mount Holyoke, and, I think, Davidson. I don’t have any question that all of these are stronger than what Swarthmore has to offer.

Schools where things are “different” than what Swarthmore has, but not necessarily stronger, include Whitman, Haverford, Amherst, Wellesley, Macalester, Carleton, Bowdoin.