Amanda West* is what you might think of as a “typical” young music student–fresh out of high school, earnest, already determined to improve her art and craft, and ambitious. She’s excited, she’s tremendously nervous, and she sounds like any other prospective freshman anywhere.
“All through high school I felt like the cream of the crop. I got the impression that if I went to our state university it would be the same–and yet if I was already going to be one of the top players as a freshman, where would I go from there? I knew I wanted to go further.”
But Amanda isn’t going just “anywhere” to school this fall. Amanda will be attending the Eastman School of Music, widely known as one of the strongest music schools in the country. Eastman is competitive, grueling–and it produces a significant percentage of successful professional musicians.
Are conservatories really all that different from, say, a strong university vocal program? “Conservatory experience will give you a taste of reality more quickly than college.” Mezzo soprano D’Anna Fortunato is a product of conservatory training herself, with an excellent career in opera and recital, and is now on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music, her alma mater. “The conservatory is more pressured than a regular university, with very talented people in your category. The handholding aspect is not as great. Students have to develop a harder shell, and more quickly [than in college], so that sometimes they’re overwhelmed unless they have a very good champion, for instance in their voice teacher. Even many career counselors can’t cope. Also, many students don’t have a realistic picture of what the conservatory will demand of them.”
Before transferring to NEC as a junior, Fortunato attended Bucknell University in Pennsylvania for two years. “I knew I wanted to be a professional singer by the time I was 14,” she said, “and I was determined to go to a conservatory. I had to battle my mother about it; she very much wanted me to get a more liberal arts education. Finally we hit on a compromise, and I went to Bucknell first. Bucknell had high musical and non-musical standards. I transferred to NEC after two years, and even then the conservatory was pretty pressured–and difficult. I had to say to myself, ‘Okay, you have to start at the bottom again.’”
How hard was it to transfer from university to conservatory? “I had had some confidence building at Bucknell, singing as an opera and choral soloist with orchestra within my first two years. Conservatory training is much more ‘conservative,’ if you will–they want you to sing and perform appropriately. It’s more structured and defined, or should be, at any rate. At a conservatory there is a very real sense of progression as to what you can handle at a certain point in your development, but I’m not sorry I followed my mother’s request.”
Beyond the issues of competitiveness and high stakes, the differences between a conservatory and a college music program can be distinct, and important. “I do say to young people, ‘Unless you are focused on one thing–with great passion and determination–you will not necessarily get the kind of background you might need to move up as a pro.’ I had to be ready for it. I had a very strong musical background beforehand, too. The beauty of the conservatory is that they are able to bring a combined experience–your musical academics and instrument study–together in a kind of pressure cooker. It forces you to exert yourself.”
Was conservatory study what she hoped it would be? “Yes and no. Let me say that I think a lot of people in conservatory have high expectations, but it is in the long run a human institution. There will also be human error–programs change, opportunities change, and there may be difficulties with money. Because students are paying so much money to attend, they should expect a very solid program.”
Richard Williams* is a jazz composer and graduate of the New England Conservatory. “A conservatory is often better, although it depends on the conservatory in question. Not so much because of the school itself, but because the students tend to be better and are better to be around. I went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst before coming here. The faculty at UMass were excellent–but I was a lot happier with NEC because of the students (and because of all the “names”).”
Ben Schuman, a tenor who last year co-founded a new opera company in NYC, said of his alma mater, the Peabody Conservatory, “I can sometimes get a little bitter about my grad school experience, because I’m now so far in debt, and I didn’t get cast much in the opera department. But it really does have a very talented vocal department. Also, the voice teachers really get along, which is not something you can say about many conservatories. Usually there is competition between the teachers, causing competition between the students.”
Gerald Brown* wrote, “I can say that I am required to be more independent than I ever have been, at the conservatory. I’m getting nothing in the way of philosophy, literature, and not much in music history or theory. I do, however, have a great teacher, amazingly gifted peers in New York City, and the name of my school, which is very recognizable.”
“With regard to my career,” Fortunato said, “[conservatory study] was very helpful. I was more musically sophisticated than some of my professional peers–I had taken very complex solfege courses with incredible instructors; musical analysis courses that were very imaginative and engaging. And when I left NEC to begin singing professionally, I maintained relationships with friends and colleagues whom I count as a mutual support system to this day. And yes, that’s probably one of the reasons why people attend a conservatory. Conservatories have higher visibility than colleges, and if students have done well and been able to succeed, they may make contacts who can be very helpful over the course of their career.”
*Names have been changed by request.
