Klarinet Archive - Posting 000646.txt from 1997/11

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Graduate schools for clarinet study
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 10:03:22 -0500

On Wed, 19 Nov 1997, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:
> Two points: (1) Both the University of Michigan and Michigan State
> University are state funded and controlled institutions. (2) In my
> original message on this topic, when I referred to conservatory atmosphere
> or orientation, what I meant was that no matter what the size or type of
> control and funding of the institution, the primary concern within the
> music unit would be performance; there would be relatively large numbers
> of students who were preparing for careers as performers, and this would
> be their central focus.

My only reaction to the intial post was with the words "conservatory-like"
or, in this post, "conservatory atmosphere" that describes an institution
other than what it is. Edwin Lacy claries it well here, but, for those of
us at small liberal arts institutions, we are even more concerned that the
words conservatory-like or conservatory atmosphere not be used
interchangeably......our colleages in the non-musical subjects are not
happy with the larger numbers of teachers and lower ratios that our school
has in the School of Music (as compared with the School of Liberal Arts).
We are constantly trying to protect our "turf" and we resist the
implication that, while we have high expectations, our School of Music is
not trying to establish a conservatory approach within a liberal arts
setting. The clarification above shows I had nothing to worry about!
Thanks for the message!

Roger Garrett
IWU