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what's the deal with Mannes New School of Music in New York?

does anyone know how good it is, the competition of getting in and all? I didn't see it mentioned yet.

There is more than one way to look at things.

If the reasons you don't get along with Professor X are your own lack of discipline and maturity, he may actually be the best instructor for you--if he is able to make you realize that you need to grow in those areas.

Many of the so-called "dogmatists" are often great instructors, because they instill the necessary self-discipline in their students. Something many "lenient" instructors are not very adept at.

An argument that Curtis is "the ultimate school of music" can certainly be made, but I think that argument could be made for other institutions, as well.

"Important U.S. conservatories include the Curtis Institute of Music, the Eastman School, and the Juilliard School." Britannica online

Britannica on line lists the three above as "important," but they are listed in alphabetical order. "Best" and "ultimate" are very subjective adjectives. I think a point that has been well made on this thread is that a school which may be the best for one students may not be the best for another.

Wow. I just read 5 pages of myths legends and detritus on music schools and conservatories. Categorizing the two or five 'best' schools is like trying to name the 'Big Five' orchestras in the US-it can't reasonably be done with authority because the list changes by whose doing it and what criteria they are applying.
Having attended two of the top schools in the country and had a 24 year (to date) professional performance career, let me give my take on things.

1. Target your music education to your music goals. Schools like Curtis, Julliard, the performance departments at Northwestern, Ind Univ, New England Cons, are just that-performance. If you don't have a high level of technical achievement it is unrealistic to apply for those programs. One of the best things I did was attend one of these schools and stack myself up against my fellow classmates. The pressure cracks more than a few but thats ok because the world is harsh if that is how you want to earn your living.
Note: Even amongst the performance studies graduates of all these schools, most don't end up earning their living from strictly performing.

2. It takes connections to get in. What a load of hooey. Again, I studied at two of the schools you all have listed as among the most prestigious and I didn't know anyone. It is related to ability and preparation. See 1.

3. Auditions. The audition process is in print for all these schools. They will have a required/recommended list to use or some will allow equivalent substitutions. You will not have to play from the collected works of all time. You will be expected to sight read which is a learnable and desirable skill. There is no secret cabal. The audition person(s) has to listen to a ton of applicants and most will just not have practiced or studied enough. I've sat on the other side and seen it myself. Practice auditioning & performing. They are skills like playing scales and arpeggios. Use and abuse your friends for that purpose.

4. Some students get in because the teacher pulls strings. It's true. It's an ugly little fact. It does happen even at the prestigious schools like Curtis & Julliard & Northwestern & all the rest. These students are still not slackers. They have demonstrated skills to the private instructor that while not really developed are seen as having a great deal of potential.

5. Age limits. With the exception of Curtis, most schools don't have an age limit per se. School do target 17-20 yo's for scholarships however. Apply for all the scholarships you can and don't write the cooresponding essay like it's a "What I did Last Summer" assignment from freshman english.

6. You have to go to school "X" to be someone. What a load of hooey that is and I too selected my schools on that basis. In the real performing world what school you went to is a tidbit of info. How you play and for big teaching jobs the depth of your pedagogical knowledge is by far what counts. Pedagogical knowledge is at an all time low among the 'best and brightest' these days. There are exceptions but not many. I think that this is because it takes hard work to study and gain that knowledge and our society has too many distractions.

7. I don't need to speak/write well because I'm a musician. Like it or not, how we present ourselves on paper is the majority of the decision these learning institutions will make. Proof read everything and read it out loud to yourself.

8. Show up on time always and know your music and all the terms in it. It is really easy to ruin a reputation but hard to regain it. Some folks consider being late twice to be a chronic problem.

9. While you are sleeping, someone else is practicing. True. Very true. But are they practicing properly. Constantly refine your practice skills so that you can get done in 30 minutes what took you 45 minutes a year or two ago.

10. School reputations. Many schools gained their reputations decades or more ago. Marketing departments spend oodles of money to maintain those reputations. As with any thing however there is a cycle of great to good to (hopefully not) mediocre back to great. Some schools cycle less than others. Student body at 'prestigious' schools is a self selecting creme of the crop provided the reputation holds up. Good solid educations can be received at other schools as well.



This is just a list of things off the top of my head. Many of the things I read are the same rumor mill stuff I heard twenty years ago too. I wish someone had given me some straight poop all those years ago.

Brandon School of Music! It's in Canada...

THere are so many good schools around. But I think the teacher whom you are going to study with is far more important than the school itself.
How about the great piano teachers? Any ideas?

Sokolov - I totally agree with you. Many high school students dream of attending Julliard, Curtis, etc. but really have no clue about the faculty. Granted, since they are so prestiguous, the caliber of teaching is no doubt very high. But there's so much more to consider when deciding with whom to study: Personality, style of playing and teaching, dedication, availability (many concert artist/teachers are gone half the time, leaving their students in the hands of either grad students or other teachers). There are hundreds of very good schools with incredible teachers. I may have suggested this before under a different topic, so forgive my repeating myself. If you have the time, start 'googling' pianists, starting with competition winners and articles about local classical music events (and you can discover the artists educational background). I recall looking up the bios on Cliburn competitors and it was interesting to see where they were studying -- not all were from Julliard or Curtis. An example would be: Park University. I had never heard of it. I looked it up - there is a formidable Russian heading up the piano dept. (his name slips my mind). His students are winning competitions. This is just one example. On a personal note..my son attends University of North Texas, and they have an excellent piano faculty. The list of schools at the beginning of this thread is a great place to start. Just get on the website and read the bios of teachers. Some might wish to study with a Russian teacher, someone else might prefer an American approach. There IS a perfect fit for everyone at every level.

Opus 119, I think the Russian or more precisely, the Uzbekistanian that you are talking about should be Stanislav Ioudenitch. He was the Gold medalist in the 2001 Cliburn competition. I don't know he has started teaching already. He is a very intellectual pianist and a good musician.

Does anyone know anything about The Wheaton College Conservatory ( http://www.wheaton.edu/Conservatory/ ) or Houghton College's Greatbach School of music. ( http://campus.houghton.edu/orgs/music/ ) I have heard good things said about Wheaton but the people who I have heard this from are like me, they too have heard good things about Wheaton.

A friend of mine teaches at Wheaton and another friend of mine attended. Both have good things to say about the school.

I agree with Sokolov_thelegend, too.

I know too many 'ordinary' people who went to J...
It really does not mean much at all.

Definitely....

Louisiana - McNeese University
Louisiana - Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts

Just to throw in my two cents - i didn't want to participate too deeply into this discussion, given my direct relationship to Curtis, but i did want to offer a few views of "the forest" as opposed to the two or three (or five) "trees" that seem to always block sight-lines during audition season for music schools:

1. No matter which school you attend, you will not get very far if you don't apply good business skills to your art. I've seen Curtis and Juilliard graduates flounder very badly, simply because they haven't learned some basic business tools like networking, prompt communication, and even something as simple as managing a schedule book! Too often i've seen jobs and opportunities lost because of procrastination and poor etiquette. It may seem like a hard thing to swallow, as we musicians love to live "for the art", but today's reality demands a more responsible demeanor from today's young artists, especially in the classical music arena!

2. Learn from everyone everywhere - many students get fixated on hooking up with that one magical teacher, thinking that doors of opportunity will open or that their playing will be radically transformed...well, perhaps the second may come into play more readily, but the student who is open to learning from disciplines outside their own, from colleagues, even from other teachers with differing points of view, will more often than not progress far better than the cloistered student who holds a myopic view of his or her master teacher's capabilities.

3. Take initiatives! i get blamed for not saying the "No" word enough, but the truth is that saying "yes" to opportunities - no matter how stressful or risky they may seem (see my latest "yes" story <a href="http://www.hughsung.com/blog/index.php?itemid=593">here</a>) will really open artistic possibilities that you simply cannot pre-plan or imagine ahead of time! I'm amazed at how many students say "no" to opportunities, simply because they don't feel "ready enough" or are simply too lazy to take on another burden!

4. Define yourself. The business world calls this 'brand marketing' - a quick look at the thousands of musicians listed in MySpace.com, for example, will quickly reveal how difficult it can be to really stand out in an artistic crowd. What makes you unique? What will make people really want to hear YOU as opposed to a hundred other pianists? Taking the time to ask these difficult questions - and forging an answer that you can feel excited about - will reap tremendous benefits, not only for your decisions on where or who to study with, but more importantly with regard to how you will shape your artistic identity in the years following your graduation. Too many music students go into conservatories blindly without thinking through the possible career paths that are out there - or that need to be created from scratch!

Sorry for the long-winded post - best wishes to all the auditionees out there during this difficult time!

Hugh Sung

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Thanks Hugh for an awesome post!

--c5

It was nice to see the reference to Stanislaw Ioudenitch. I was on the jury in New Orleans when he was awarded the first prize--I enjoyed him very much, and we've stayed in touch--a fine man and musician!

I will add that I am on faculty at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, where we have been attracting international students more regularly, and many of the transfer students come from some of the big three from New York City. It is simply me with Michael Rogers, another Adele Marcus pupil, on faculty for piano. We also have piano class once a week--alphabetically, everyone takes their turn and plays in the recital hall for the 90 minute class, and after 4 or 5 students play their pieces, we do an open master class, and one week I teach it, the next week, Michael Rogers. It creates an open environment for all the students in both classes to learn from both of us. We see eye-to-eye musically, having been Adele Marcus students, so it is a wonderful comradry that we share.

I don't want to appear ignorant, but what 17 year old Junior of Senior can play several Beethoven Sonatas, all of the Chopin sonatas and the Bach P&Fs. I can understand playing 3 or 4 Beethoven's, the easier of the Chopin (I use the word easy lightly) and the Bach P&Fs, but are there really enough prodigies to fill up all of the music schools now a days?

I hate to say it, but that's nothing. I would say by 17, one would have several Beethoven, Mozart, haydn sonatas, a few Schubert, several Schumann works, many Bach Preludes and Fugues, a Chopin Ballade or two, 3 or 4 Polonaises, several mazurkas, atleast a dozen Waltzes--get the picture? Oh--it wouldn't hurt to have 5+ concerti either. My Juilliard audition at that age was:
Bach: Partita no. 2 in c minor, Beethoven 'Waldstein', Chopin 'Scherzo no. 3', Liszt 'Hungarian Rhapsody no. 11', Rachmaninoff 'Prelude in G Major', Liszt's 'Feux-follets', and Scriabin's 'Etude in D-flat Major' (the staccato double note one). And this was the norm in 1979 for everyone trying out.

And it has only increased I suppose?

What baffles me though is that (as a saxophone player also) you can learn play one Sonata (Creston ext...) or maby a concerto (Robert Ward's for Tenor if played well would get you in anywhere) and get into the better music schools. If you know your way around scales you are shoe in for most jazz performance degrees, and at the good schools a little intuition will get you a long ways. There are a decent amount of prodigies on the saxophone, but I guess it doesnt get the same prodigal treatment as piano. I don't know that any of the "band" instruments are like this. This is a different topic all together but I couldn't help but mentioning it.

Basically everywhere, prodigies are the rule, not the exception.

One gets tired of the celebration of a prodigy. I feel like I look around and say "he was a prodigy... he'll get in, but, oh yea, so is he, and him, and him, and her, and him, and him, and her, and her, and him, he just had his debut with the NY Philharmonic, she's 8 and can play all the Chopin etudes..." and I think to myself, "What in the world am I doing auditioning at these places? I didn't start till I was almost nine, and I had small town teacher who teaches kids that think Rondo alla turca is an extremely advanced piece (played horribly), and then she said I should go to another teacher, mainly I think because I didn't practice, and I am now with a 73 year old teacher who has practically never performed, and has maybe an music education degree from a local college with an almost non-existant piano program... And i'm supposed to compete with the kid over there whose mother is a concert pianist, and father is the conductor of some big symphony, and started playing piano when he was one and a half?"

It's just nuts.

*Excuse some slight exaggeration