What colleges have the best orchestras?

bruno14
Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:35:53 +0000

I don’t know if there’s any actual ranking of orchestras. I would rather look at the schools you’re considering and try to talk to the orchestra directors and possibly players about their experience.

In my experience, there can be quite a large amount of variance between music programs and orchestras at different colleges. Where at some colleges the level is quite high, at others they aren’t very impressive at all, and may remind you more of a high school orchestra. Some schools have one ensemble reserved for music majors and one for other players, while some combine the two.

I’ve really enjoyed majoring in music at Brown, and here we have a very small music department. Only perhaps 10-20% of the players in the orchestra here are music majors, but the level is incredibly high (for recordings, you can go here: [Brown University Department of Music](Music | Brown University)). Feel free to contact me with any other questions!