Since this topic has come up several times recently, here are some quick links to some conservatories in the US that have recognized piano departments. Feel free to add any ones that I might have forgotten.

Juilliard - http://www.juilliard.edu
Curtis - http://www.curtis.edu
Manhattan - http://www.msmnyc.edu/
Mannes - http://www.mannes.newschool.edu/index.jsp
Cincinnati - http://www.ccm.uc.edu
Oberlin - http://www.oberlin.edu
CIM - http://www.cim.edu
Eastman - http://www.esm.rochester.edu/
Indiana - http://www.music.indiana.edu/
Rice - http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~musi/
TCU - http://www.music.tcu.edu/
UMKC - http://conservatory.umkc.edu/default.asp
KU - http://www.ku.edu/~sfa/mad/
USC - http://www.usc.edu/music/
UCLA - http://www.music.ucla.edu/
UT Austin - http://www.music.utexas.edu/
UNT - http://www.music.unt.edu/
Stony Brook - http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/Music.nsf
Colburn - http://www.colburnschool.edu/about.htm
Peabody - http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/home.php
Yale - http://www.yale.edu/yalemus/
Boston Conservatory - http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/
Arizona State University - http://music.asu.edu/
Ann Arbor - http://www.music.umich.edu/

NEC - www.newenglandconservatory.edu

Lynn University (Harid Conservatory) www.lynn.edu/music
University of Maryland www.music.umd.edu
Utah State University www.usu.edu/music (Gary Amano is here)

Shenandoah University- www.su.edu

This forum is entire USA? just curiosity...

No, it's just that we've had a lot of requests regarding US schools. We do have members all over the world, though.

Yeah, we've got people from Sweden, South America, Australia and New Jersey, just to name a few. :p

Meadows School of Music at SMU (Southern Methodist in Dallas). Their top piano professor won a national award for teacher of the year at the collegiate level.

A correction, please. After checking back at their website, Carol Leone was honored as the top teacher in Texas. So I stand corrected -- it was not national. Next time I'll be sure to double check before I post anything!

Maybe we should do a poll and see exactly how many there are.

San Francisco Conservatory of Music - http://www.sfcm.edu/index.aspx

Wow, I can't believe some of you guys are still on here!
I wouldn't count my school as "internationall recognized", but I went to Eastern University.

eastern

What about Berklee?

Berklee School of Music

Musicians Institute

MI

Seems like I often see Northwestern (Evanston IL)on these lists:

http://music.northwestern.edu/indexf.html

Which do you think are the best and how good do you have to be to enter them?

I have heard of Juillard as a very good conservatory, as well as Curtis. And I heard Leon Fleisher teaches at Baltimore.

Of course Curtis is considered the best - and not only is the faculty top-notch, but if you are accepted, then it is a full-ride, tuition free for as long as you are there. All you need to do is figure out your living arrangements, and I think they assist you with that (they have no dorms). Julliard is probably the next in line, right up there. However, I believe the reputation has gone down just slightly since they have lost some of the most famous teachers in recent years. Also, many schools are gaining in reputation and giving Julliard some competition. Eastman and Peabody are also top of the line. As far as gaining entrance...in piano you would be expected to pretty much know most or all Chopin Etudes, numerous Beethoven Sonatas and have studied all Bach P&F's. Then just add on to that many major works by Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Schubert, Schumann, and 20th century composers, not to mention Debussy & Ravel. You get the picture. The competition for these schools is brutal. But that doesn't mean you can't work toward it! I will say that (and this is from a violin professor) that if you haven't been admitted to Curtis by the time you are a teenager - even as early as 14, 15 or 16, you may as well forget it. Oh, and except for Curtis they are very expensive to attend. What is encouraging is there are so many other very good schools in the US with fantastic teachers and very good programs. You can make alot of progress there - and then follow your dream and attend grad school at Julliard, Eastman or another top conservatory.

I see. But are Eastman and Peabody etc. not also of "high quality"? Isn't it hard to enter them? If they require that you should be able to play all Chopin etudes, I can forget it...

Could you compare some US conservatories with some European (preferably Dutch)?

Oh boy. I just had my audition at Peabody and I only know one Chopin etude which I prepared for my auditon that day. I wouldn't think that you would need to know all of them, but maybe more than one? Well I have to admit I felt kind of sick because one of pieces the undergrad candidate after me was playing the Berg Sonata.

Well My teacher talked to his old teacher who was there judging and he said I played good, but of course there are many others I am willing to bet played much better than I did.

Disclaimer: I'm young, unexperienced, and slightly naive.

I don't believe that one could say, for all people, that School X is the best school. It is very personal. Here are some factors that, at least for me, are important (in no particular order):

-- location
-- faculty
-- living arrangements
-- practice facilities
-- size
-- social atmosphere
-- intellectual atmosphere
-- tuition / financial aid


So, what if you can't stand living in the city? What if you can't stand living in a "cut-throat", intensely-competitve community? Then are Juilliard and Curtis really good schools for you?

What if you really don't feel like you could do well practicing on carpy pianos all the time? Then is Eastman really a good school for you?

What if you really like a smaller school, with a more friendly environment? What if you want to be on a very liberal campus? Then maybe is Oberlin a good choice?

What if you want to be on a really big campus that's maybe more conservative?

What if you met one of the professors at, say, Northwestern University, and you really clicked? What if you met one of the professors at, say, Cleveland Institute of Music, and you couldn't stand each other?

What if your family lives on the West Coast, and you know that you really will be miserable and you won't do well far from home? What if your family lives on the East Coast?

What if you will work best far away from your family?

What if you hate the cold weather, and you love hot weather? What if you hate the hot weather, but you love cold weather?


There are so many factors. Again, I'm very young and inexperienced, and probably very naive, but I just don't agree that "This school is the best" and "That school is better than this other school" for everybody.

Who knows? Maybe for certain people Juilliard and Curtis would be the worst[/b] schools to go to. Or maybe for certain other people, they really would be the best. It really depends on the student.

And what if ONLY looking at the teaching skills there, so how good the professors are etc.?

It's very personal. Professor X may be a really great professor, but if you don't get along with him, he's the worst professor in the world for you. Professor Y may be considered a really great professor, but if he's very dogmatic about his interpretations, and you have very different interpretations, then you aren't going to benefit from him as much as you could from a more leniant professor. Professor Z may teach at a school that is not even on this list, but if he really bonds with the student, and he has a way of explaining things that is perfectly clear to the student, and he knows how to assign pieces well and explain different ways of practicing that are suitable for this particular student, then actually he may be the best teacher for this student, or at least much better than those teachers at Juilliard, Curtis, etc.


The professors are people, just as the students are people. It's really important (I think) that the professor and the student are a right match for each other.


(I also think that it is a little naive to think that there are a handful of professors who are better than the (I'm guessing this number) hundreds of thousands of other piano teachers around the country, just because they teach at Juilliard or Curtis. In fact, there are many, many, many good teachers who don't teach at those two schools, who may be just as "good" in general, and who may even be, for a particular student, "better".)

Teaching skill isn't on a linear scale.

I had a discussion with Ann Schein once where she mentioned that she only works with students who are already technically and musically proficient. She said she does that because she doesn't know how to teach those who aren't. Some teachers are good at getting students from S to W - that's Ann Schein. But if you're at J, then it takes a completely different kind of teacher to get you to S.

Unfortunately, the teachers who do best at building technique and musicality tend to be less known than teachers who are more comfortable refining it.

PianoJerome -- very excellent points and everyone considering higher education in music should keep your list in mind.

I would like to clarify my earlier post -- I was in a hurry and so didn't really edit it properly. I didn't mean to say that one had to *know* all of the Chopin Etudes, but I think those who end up at Julliard or one of the other top schools have probably studied all or most of them at some point in their years at the piano.

Has anyone heard of Wichita State University as presitigious for music?

Oups sorry, I just saw that it was US only..!

Someone said Curtis is the most prestigious in the world even beyond Juilliard but from my experience I have known of several people transferring from Curtis to Juilliard but never the opposite way around. This seemed to suggest to me that Juilliard is #1 but I don't know, maybe it just has that reputation from being in NYC.

I mean don't get me wrong both are probably #1 and #2 in my opinion and I have heard horror stories about entrance to Curtis, for example they do call backs and sometimes you have to audition as many as 3 times, but I just think that Juilliard is still considered/viewed by most as the epitome of musical conservatories in the world.

I wonder what you all think?

For what it's worth, in terms of undergrad, I've heard that Cleveland Institute of Music is more prestigious/better than Juilliard.

Not that that really means much. There are lots of "best" "most prestigious" schools, depending on whom you ask, and whom they have asked.

Yea definitely all of those top schools like Oberlin, NEC, Peabody etc are all highly prestigious and its not to put anything bad on them but it was just my 2 cents worth that from m personal experience from talking to accomplished pianists over the years that Juilliard seems to be king, I have lurked for a while here and I think the guy Koji Attwood who posts here himself went to Curtis and then transferred to Juilliard where he is still studying.