moving to US ? City and Teacher?

[cinnamon21]

Hi guyss

As I'm currently preparing for a masters audition without a teacher. After much consideration, I have decided to move to US since I want to be doing my masters there anyway...so might as well go there...do you know a good city to live and teacher to learn with for the time being? At first I thought this is crazy but I really need to make some changes in my life.

[rubinsteinmad]

 I don't know any good teachers (well, I do,  but they have their own privacies  ), but

 New York State has lots of good pianists, but I don't know if they're good teachers. I. e. Juillard, Eastman, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music, Bard College Conservatory, NYU, etc.


Boston, MA also has a few: Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Berklee School of Music, etc

Ohio: Cleveland Institute of music, Oberlin, and Cincinatti Conservatory.

You can check out more places, but I think these areas have the most music schools. I. e. Quality of life, climate, etc.

[indianajo]

Cost of living is lower in the midwest and south.  The schools are not as prestigious there, but you can find a teacher while trying to break into the A-team league, the named conservatories and music schools above.  Check with the American Piano Guild  for a teacher, or with the local college music school in a B sized city.  
When the famous artist didn't show up for a concert at our city symphony, a teacher from the local city university music school played a very good concerto. So there is a lot of talent out there, just not all of it famous.  Even a B level university like the local one, you will probably have to audition and take a few lessons with the graduate teaching assisant to prove you are worthy of the best teacher.  
Around here, Hanover College near Madison Indiana has no music degree program, but the choral leader Dr. Madlen Batchvarova is quite the pianist. I've heard her perform. She is very a powerful player.   Costs of living are very low here, the weather is nice, crime is low, and the people are easy to get along with.  The Doctor is on LinkedIN if you want to contact her. 

[chopinlover01]

California has some great schools as well, though the cost of living can be through the roof depending on where you're at.
Oregon has some decent schools too, Marylhurst University and places like that (probably misspelled that).
Aside from my area I'm not sure.

[rubinsteinmad]

I agree. A school's reputation doesn't always matter. I mean, I've had lessons w/ people graduating from schools I've never heard about, and they were FAR more useful than the many lessons I was given by a claimed(claimed, NOT acclaimed Notice I did not add the letters "a" and "c") "Juillard graduate".

[stevensk]

-Moving to US? Why? I thought US and classical music was an contradiction 

[iansinclair]

-Moving to US? Why? I thought US and classical music was an contradiction 

I trust that that is meant as a joke...

[cinnamon21]

Thanks for the reply guys.

I'm actually thinking of taking lessons from several professors to decide who to study regularly with (is this even possible?) for a year before auditioning. So for now...maybe I'll not move completely but perhaps stay for a few months? Does this make sense? Or do you know any committed and caring teachers in Singapore or Australia? I'm also sick of studying with *insert school name* graduate only to be disappointed. I want a helpful teacher that understands my goal...not just treat me as a number. *sigh* I need a coach or mentor...not someone who does not care about my future...since I have decided to make a career in this field.

Thank you so much everyone

[stevensk]

I trust that that is meant as a joke...

-Well, actually not. Tell me that I am uninformed, but I have always percieved the US as the brightest beacon in the wolrld for trash culture.

[iansinclair]

-Well, actually not. Tell me that I am uninformed, but I have always percieved the US as the brightest beacon in the wolrld for trash culture.

Well, it does certainly have a wide variety of culture, and not all of it is exactly highbrow.  That said, it does also have some of the world's finest symphony orchestras (Boston, New York Phil, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, to name a few), opera companies (New York Metropolitan, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, again to name a few), ballet companies (American Ballet Theatre, Miami City Ballet, San Francisco, Boston), and conservatories (New England, Julliard, Univ. of Indiana, etc.) as well as quite a healthy assortment of lesser known but very high level groups -- not to mention a healthy array of summer festivals.  In addition to which virtually every significant city has very good semi-professional or part time groups...

[rubinsteinmad]

And we have Curtis

[stevensk]

Well, it does certainly have a wide variety of culture, and not all of it is exactly highbrow.  That said, it does also have some of the world's finest symphony orchestras (Boston, New York Phil, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, to name a few), opera companies (New York Metropolitan, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, again to name a few), ballet companies (American Ballet Theatre, Miami City Ballet, San Francisco, Boston), and conservatories (New England, Julliard, Univ. of Indiana, etc.) as well as quite a healthy assortment of lesser known but very high level groups -- not to mention a healthy array of summer festivals.  In addition to which virtually every significant city has very good semi-professional or part time groups...

-Well, almost every country in Europe has that. Even very very small countrys. So, thats not very impressive.  Isnt music in the US just a marketing thing? Showbuisness?  For all this people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

[stevensk]

And we have Curtis

..Fine, you have one good music school 

[rubinsteinmad]

lol. Tbilisi Conservatory in Georgia, is probably as good as Indiana Jacobs or NEC

[iansinclair]

My dear stevensk!  You would do yourself a favour by looking around a bit more, and being a bit less parochial.  And I would never go so far as to say that the better US classical music organisations are better than the equivalent European ones -- say, for example, the Concertgebouw or Vienna or Berlin Phils for orchestras, just for examples.  On the other hand, they are no worse, and each has certain things which it does better than anyone else -- and others which it does worse.

And Curtis (in Philadelphia) is just one of many fine music conservatories -- I mentioned a few others but didn't happen to include Curtis (and rubinstein -- the Tbilisi Conservatory is good, no question).

There is more emphasis on marketing in the US, that I will grant -- for the simple reason that it is very rare for a music organisation to get any significant support from any level of government, which is quite unlike the European model, where government support is taken as granted (and where catastrophes, such as the current disaster at the English National Opera, can occur when the political climate changes).  Is the US model of private charitable support better or worse than the European model of government support?  I'd not care to make a judgement on that.  Best just to say that it's different.