What I love -should I pursue it?

Consolation
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:31:09 +0000

I’m not sure what year of HS you are in, but another alternative–assuming that your parents could afford it–would be to apply to some high quality summer music programs that require audition tapes. Interlaken in Michigan springs to mind as one of the most well-known. If you get it, it tells you something. If you do well once there, it tells you more.

I’m mostly familiar with programs in the northeast, and mostly string quartet stuff, but I’m sure there are parents in the music forum who could make suggestions for your region, or at least the southeast.

If you are a rising senior, I suggest you plan to apply to some audition-only music programs at universities, such as the Tisch School at NYU, as well as a couple of conservatories (Peabody, Eastman, Julliard, Oberlin, et al) and regular academic programs where you would have the opportunity to pursue music seriously. A schools like Tufts, for example, has a cooperative program with the New England Conservatory, but even if you weren’t in that program Boston is replete with excellent musicians and teachers from whom to learn. The same is true of New York and other cities that have a major orchestra.