Should I go into music?

Congrats! You are coming to a very accessible artistic city. I live in the Twin Cities. Macalester is in a beautiful part of town and very accessible to the downtown St. Paul and Mpls music and theater scenes. The great thing about being in the cities is you will have opportunities to explore, learn and perform in and outside of school. You will have no difficulties finding private music instruction. I would suggest reaching out to the school instructors first and taking advantage of what the school has to offer. But, have no fear, you can find excellent instruction nearby too if you feel you would like to branch out. Here are two music schools to be aware of in the area.

The MacPhail music school in Mpls is for ages 0 - 100. It is not a college. Many people interested in music will take private or group lessons there - from babies to pros - for classical, rock, jazz or contemporary. There have a large presence for all types of musical training. You should also be aware of McNally Smith in St. Paul. This is a college that focus on contemporary music. I would guess many of the teachers there also give private lessons. Most of these teachers also work in the contemporary music scene in the cities. The point is there are many good teachers in the area. Also it is a tight knit community meaning a teacher at Macalester is probably associated in some way with a teacher at McNally Smith and MacPhail. Particularly if you are interested in contemporary, after some time, you should be able to gig in the cities pretty easily.

Edit: Check out Zenon dance school … all kind of dance lessons but best to just start at your school. And for musical theatre, there are auditions for good community theaters up to the more professional theaters in town that kids in the UMN Guthrie Acting program often do in the summer…to supplement their training. You’ll have more opportunities than time…BUT start with your school programs first. You can branch out as you grow over the years.