Elizabeth:  Check out Bard College.  Everything is relative, of course, and it depends heavily on who is actually at any given school at any given time, but I'm hearing good things about their program.

 

My daughter taught in a NYC high school for a while, where the students could complete their high school diploma AND get an Associates degree--from Bard!--in 4 years.  She was teaching math (both high school and college classes), but they seem to be pretty progressive.

 

John

Dear Elizabeth.

 

I have several frineds who stuided at Ithaca College. I have visited there a few times also and they have excellent programs, poeple and facilities.

Thanks for the reply John. I will definitely take Bard into consideration. 

Westminster Choir College, princeton nj

Hello Elizabeth,

 

Just in case you go on to Grad School in Choral Conducting, hang on to this fantastic list of grad schools: http://www.gradmusic.org/choral-conducting.html

 

Best of luck in your studies!

 

Lorraine

Well, Miss Mulligan, congratulations on getting an early start.  I also live in New York state, in Ithaca.  Bingamton University, a state school, has a really good choral conducting program.  Bruce Borton is the head of choral operations there.  He worked with the late Robert Shaw (google him) as his assistant for ten years.  Under his tutelage, I will be starting the MM program in the fall.  It's a nice campus, and a really good school. ("The Harvard of the SUNY schools," they say.)  Best of all is the tuition for in-state students.  Yes, Bard has all the bells and whistles, including the marvelous Leon Botstein, but Bard also has lots of distractions, its proximity to NYC probably the biggest one.  Tuition for one year costs about what two bachelor and one masters at BU would cost. 

 

Good luck on your journey.

Also take a look at Westminster Choir College of Rider University (in Princeton, NJ) and Temple University (Philadelphia).

Elizabeth:  You're getting good answers, and the bottom line is that there are a LOT of really good programs available.  Some of them are large state univerisities with large Schools of Music (Indiana, Michigan, Florida State come to mind, and I'm not up to date on the southern or western schools).  Some are private conservatories, or these days conservatories associated with state or private universities.  And I've known good people who came out of much smaller programs with a terrific education.

 

My parents (lifelong educators) maintained that it doesn't really matter WHERE you do your undergraduate work, since you'll be learning about the same things wherever you are, but that your choice of graduate schools is key.  I'm not sure I agree completely, because there ARE programs that are better than others.  But when you start researching you'll find that out-of-state tuition at state universities will often be just as high as tuition at private schools and conservatories, and the private schools often have more flexibility in the scholarships and other financial aid they can offer.  And conservatories are not known for taking music education as seriously as professional performance.

 

My advice:  visit as many of the schools that appeal to you as you possibly can, meet the choral faculty (who will try to sell you on their schools, of course) AND the students in the choral ensembles (who can tell you what they really think!), and whenever possible attend a concert or a rehearsal to get a feel for what is actually happening there.  But remember that there are some schools that try only to admit the very best students, so their performances are going to be terrific, and others who are more dedicated to giving everyone who is willing to WORK a chance to excell, and it's actually more difficult to produce great performances with people who are not "stars" to begin with, so they are actually accomplishing a lot more.

All the best,

John

I did my undergrad in music education at Ithaca College and my master's at Columbia/Teacher's College.  That said...if Queens College had a summer program available I would have done my master's there. Their facilities and faculty were top notch.  It would be worth checking to see if that's still true.  I would also look at Rutgers and Hartt School of Music in CT.

I would also suggest Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. They have a great music education progam and Peggy Dettwiler is amazing. Its low costing too. THeir choirs have been invited for the past 20 years to acda conventions and MENC conventions. They have won first place prizes in Europe and most recently in London they won first place. They have also been to the world choir games where they came in first in the world in the gospel and spiritual division and 1st in the vocal jazz division. It is a great choral program.