Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Two School Years Left, Not alot of money... not a prodigy... yet...

Ladies and Gentlemen,


I'll be applying/auditioning to Colburn and Curtis.





Then they'll just have to realize my genius before I do and accept me.

so what is your repertoire for your audition?

don't know yet... I have 2 school years left and plan to make the best of it.


I'm thinking I will amaze them with my interpretation of John Cage's "4'33"

so seriously. what are the best music schools for the cheapest price, outside the two free schools I just mentioned?

I don't live in the U.S. But anyway here in canada there is a music academy and it only costs $4500 a year to study there.

hmm...interesting but won't they usually ask for a Bach,Classical Sonata and Concert Etude too

It was a joke...

John Cage's 4'33 is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of complete silence. anyway.

I was looking around at prices, and a reasonable one is Mannes in NY.

Yes, but I'm not sure that Amelia knew that!
Go with Curtis. Anyone who gets in gets a full scholarship and the use of their "own" Steinway B for the duration! Of course, getting in is extremely difficult. In any given year in any given department there are only a limited number of spaces made available by those who graduate from that department in the previous year.

Regards,

no... I say go with Colburn.

Not only is it tuition free, but you get to live for free in an apartment across the street from Disney Hall... the apartment is 2 bedrooms which you share with one other student, and it's probably worth about $3000-3500 a month.

And they give you about $400 a month for food...

and I even heard that if you volunteer you to accompany instrumentalists, you get paid couple thousand bucks a semester...

oh and all the instruments and facilities are BRAND new.

Besides you'd be with John Perry... so why Curtis?

Leon Fleisher
Claude Frank
Gary Graffman
Seymour Lipkin
Eleanor Sokoloff

Seriously, though; are you Curtis/Colburn material?

Regards,

Even if you are Curtis/Colburn material, that's no guarantee you'll make the cut. I applied to Rice and didn't get in. I felt bad at first until I discovered that 35 pianists had auditioned for 3 slots.

You have to look at other options. Other schools like Yale and Rice do very well in terms of tuition, and most universities help out quite a bit with financial aid - you just need to ask.

Although it makes sense to apply to some low-tuition schools, you should not avoid applying to any school solely because you think it will be too expensive.

Many of the best conservatories are very generous with financial aid.

True, but for grad school mostly (at least in my experience). Undergrads are sometimes seen as a risk since they haven't "proven" themselves academically.

Of course, there are a million exceptions, but most people end up paying.

That does seem to be the pattern at state schools, even the really good ones. Some private schools will cough it up for undergrads, though. To generalize very broadly from what I've observed, the more "prestigious" private schools tend to have larger endowments and better financial aid.

My point is that students should apply to the schools that they want to attend, because they can't predict the amount of tuition that they'll be asked to pay.

Brendan is correct about undergrad/graduate for the big schools.

The funny thing is, the opposite is true at many public schools. The University of Iowa, for example, has an excellent piano department, but they have more graduate students than undergrads and would love to increase their undergraduate enrollment. (And they're willing to give out scholarship money to make that happen.)

Seriously...if you want a good deal as an undergrad, then find a small school with a good teacher that's desperate for students. I went to Missouri State University for free because of academic and music scholarships. It's not really on the map, except that I studied with the person who's now the chair of the piano department at Michigan. It was his first job before he "made it big," so basically I got to study with a conservatory-grade teacher for free. University of Oklahoma students lucked out for a while when Andrew Cooperstock was there, and Alvin Chow (now at Oberlin) taught at Missouri State and the University of Arkansas.

Another perspective,

Yes Curtis and Colburn are tuition free, but there are limited spots at both schools. If you are the type of player that has a "shot" at Curtis, for instance, there are many state schools and private schools that would offer a very attractive package (maybe a free ride) to attend there. We had a saying at Temple U. about orchestral players - "the 2 back rows pay for the 2 front rows".

While that was only a joke, it had a ring of truth to it.

Good luck in your search and the journey that will follow it!

Then you have another search for a grad. school and a possible assistantship.

Rich has a good point, if you're Colburn/Curits material, then pretty much any school will give you a ton of money.

Hey guys, I'm applying to these two schools next year. What do you think of my program?

Bach - Toccata in D Major, BMV 912
Beethoven - Sonata Op. 109
Chopin - Barcarolle
Chopin - Etudes Op 25 No 5, 12
Prokofiev - Sonata No 7 in Bb Major

Does this show enough techniqe? All but the prokofiev are much harder musically than technically.

Of course it shows enough technique, but you'd be surprised at how much they don't care. Everybody at that level has great technique. And I disagree about the Prokofiev - keeping the lines and structure together can be very challenging musically.