 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2001-08-16 03:27
I'm going to be a junior in high school this year and I'm considering majoring in music history in college with a possible minor in clarinet performance. I'm looking for somewhere in the Northeast US (not west of Ohio or south of Baltimore) or maybe in Toronto or Montreal. I have very good grades at a tough private school (except for a B+ in honors biology and B in honors math). My list of colleges so far is (in no order): McGill, Smith, Barnard/Columbia, Swarthmore, Boston U, Amherst, NE Conservatory, Sarah Lawrence, Cleveland Institute/Case Western Reserve, Oberlin, Williams, U of Toronto, Temple, U of Hartford and U of Pennsylvania. I'm not looking at either Ithaca or Cornell because I live very near Ithaca and want to leave home. I'd like to avoid anywhere too enormous and/or sports crazed (yes, I've ruled out Indiana)
Are any of these schools particularly good or bad for music history (or clarinet)? Are there any that I'm missing? Is there anyone out there in the wild world of cyberspace who has actually majored in music history or theory and can give me some advice (I've actually never met anyone who has- all my teachers just know about performance)? I'm going to Cleveland next week to tour all three on my list there.
Thanks,
Micaela
(What am I doing up this late thinking about college anyway?!?)
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2001-08-16 04:03
I know absolutely nothing about being a music history major, or music history, for that matter:-)
I do know a little bit about Swarthmore, since I live in Philadelphia. It certainly isn't enormous. It's not sports - crazed; they gave up football a year ago.
What I know about Swarthmore comes from the fact that, as a member of the folk dance community here, I was allowed to participate with an informal student ensemble there that played for their evening English country dancing class. The students at Swarthmore, and at Haverford / Bryn Mawr Colleges, can take English and Scottish country dancing to fulfill PE requirements - and they can even fulfill those requirements by playing for the dancing! Kind of a reverse from those universities that require music majors to participate in marching band. Swarthmore seems to be very strong in the arts and humanities, as well as the sciences, and is generally considered to be first rate, academically.
Temple is a big (but not huge) school in the city here, and not in a great neighborhood. Nuts about basketball. There's also Curtiss, and University of the Arts.
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2001-08-16 04:19
Oh, I should have added, in case you didn't already know, that Peter Shickele claims to have been Swarthmore's first music major, back in '57:-)
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-16 15:58
I do not know about McGill (in Montreal) Music History program, but its music department is second to none (in fact, considered the best in Canada and one of the very best in the world).
In general, McGill (an old institutions with much depth and tradition in many fields) is up there with the major Ivy League university of the US.
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Author: Judy
Date: 2001-08-17 00:05
Music history is too narrow a field for an undergraduate degree at most colleges and universities. Do you want to major in music (as an academic field) or history? I realize that you may not know the answer to this question. Look at the required courses for both majors at the colleges/universities you are considering. If you still don't know the answer to the question, look for colleges/universities that have strong programs in history and non-performance music. If you do know the answer to the question, it will help to narrow down your choices. Your list looks like you have already given this topic a lot of though - as you may know, NE Conservatory is allied with Tufts. What about Johns Hopkins/Peabody? Also, consider bending your rules for Northwestern University - great academics, great music. University of Michigan is also an option if you bend the "too enormous" rule. If you bend the not too far South rule, look at Rice/Shepherd School of Music. If you bend the not too far West rule, look at University of Southern California.
Another thing to consider if you want to continue with clarinet lessons is which schools will allow you to take lessons with the music performance professors if you are not a music performance major. If you go to Columbia/Barnard for example and you want to take clarinet lessons from a Juilliard professor, you may have to go through Juilliard auditions - check this out at all of the schools you are considering if this is an issue. The History reputation of Columbia/Barnard, however, is fabulous.
Feel free to e-mail me privately. I was a history major with a minor field in literature at the graduate level. I went through the college application business 2 years ago with my son who is a music performance major.
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