THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 109 NOVEMBER 6, 2019
Students at Berklee.JUILLIARD: RICHARD TERMINE/COURTESY OF JUILLIARD. BERKLEE: CRAIG BAILEY/COURTESY OF BERKLEE. COLUMBIA: ERON RAUCH/COURTESY OF C
OLUMBIA. JONES: MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES. STOKOWSKI: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES.
arts degree and studying music?
Oberlin lets you do both, with
joint master’s and undergrad
degrees. Students are steeped
in music history, with courses
on conducting, ethnomusicol-
ogy and opera, but there are
also more modern programs
like technology in music and
related arts.
TUITION $55,976
NOTABLE ALUMS James McBride,
Liz Phair12
CURTIS INSTITUTE
PHILADELPHIA
If you can squeeze past
the school’s brutal admissions
standards (only 4 percent of
applicants make it into the gradu-
ate and undergrad programs),
Curtis offers a tuition-free ride,
with all students receiving merit-
based scholarships that cover the
full cost of their education. The
result is a small student body
(about 175 students, just enough
to fill out its symphony orchestra)
and a high teacher-student ratio.
TUITION Free
NOTABLE ALUMS Leonard Bernstein,
Nino Rota13
ROYAL COLLEGE
OF MUSIC
LONDON
RCM offers an undergrad degree
in music as well as a range of
master’s degrees (music perfor-
mance, composition, chamber
music). Although
it’s not well known
for its media scor-
ing curriculum, it
has started offer-
ing postgraduate
classes in composition for screen,
which take advantage of London’s
plentiful film, TV and advertising
production studios.
TUITION $31,510
NOTABLE ALUMS Leopold Stokowski,
Richard Addinsell14
MUSICIANS INSTITUTE
LOS ANGELES
What was originally
founded in 1977 as the Guitar
Institute of Technology, a train-
ing ground for aspiring rockersSymphony and has played a role
in the formation of other institu-
tions like the Tanglewood Festival
Chorus and the Boston Chamber
Music Society.
TUITION $49,580
NOTABLE ALUMS Sean Callery,
Ralph Burns9
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
JACOBS SCHOOL OF
MUSIC
BLOOMINGTON
In January, the school announced
it is expanding its already cel-
ebrated music scoring for visual
media program, run by Larry
Groupé, to include a master’s
degree, undergraduate and
doctoral minors and two certifi-
cate degrees. Classes range from
orchestration for the screen to
licensing and performing rights.
TUITION $38,255
NOTABLE ALUMS Joshua Bell,
Leonard Slatkin10
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
STEINHARDT
NEW YORK
The only school on this list with
its own label — Village Records
— it’s got a venerable reputation
for teaching concert music. But
it’s also not a bad place to pick
up a master’s in scoring for film
and multimedia.
TUITION $51,828
NOTABLE ALUMS Elmer Bernstein,
Alan Menken11
OBERLIN
CONSERVATORY
OBERLIN, OHIO
Torn between pursuing a liberalinteractive media, those reels
tend to be chock-full. Students
also spend a five-week semester
in L.A. interning with profes-
sional composers.
TUITION $26,090
NOTABLE ALUMS Paul Broucek,
Kid Sister4
BERKLEE COLLEGE
OF MUSIC
BOSTON
The school offers a smorgasbord
of graduate-level classes — dra-
matic scoring, video game music,
post-romantic scoring, interac-
tive scoring — but its strength
is in its real-world
business training.
“From my first day at
Berklee, they talked
about what to do
when you’re out of
school, what you’re going to do
in L.A., how you’re going to carry
yourself, how should your website
be, things like that,” says com-
poser Arturo Cardelús (Buñuel in
the Labyrinth of the Turtles).
TUITION $44,360
NOTABLE ALUMS Quincy Jones,
Alan Silvestri5
UCLA HERB ALPERT
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
LOS ANGELES
It’s got a new dean (Eileen
Strempel), a new professor
(Terence Blanchard, who’ll be
teaching global jazz studies) and
a new undergraduate course in
music history. The master’s and
Ph.D. programs, meanwhile, offer
specializations in composition or
composition for visual media.
TUITION $11,502 (undergrad);
$13,226 (grad)
NOTABLE ALUMS Eric Gorfain,
James Horner6
SAN FRANCISCO
CONSERVATORY
SAN FRANCISCO
Its proximity to Silicon Valley
means a close relationship
with the video game industry
(grad and undergrad students
alike can hone their skills at the
Sony PlayStation Studios in San
Mateo), but it also has deep ties
to the film community (they get
to score movie scenes at George
Lucas’ Skywalker Sound).
TUITION $43,410 (undergrad
and grad)
NOTABLE ALUMS Isaac Stern,
Te r r y R i l ey7
EASTMAN SCHOOL
OF MUSIC
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
Emmy-winning House of Cards
composer Jeff Beal and his wife,
Joan, established the school’s
Beal Institute for Film Music and
Contemporary Media in 2015 with
a $2 million grant. The two-year
master’s program, now directed
by composer Mark Watters,
accepts only about half a dozen
students a year, and they compose
12 to 16 hours a day.
TUITION $46,150
NOTABLE ALUMS Chuck Mangione,
Alexander Courage8
NEW ENGLAND
CONSERVATORY
BOSTON
The oldest music school in the
nation is also one of the most old-
fashioned. It still refuses to offer
a music in film concentration.
Still, it’s a pipeline for instrumen-
talists looking to join the BostonColumbia College Chicago.JonesStokowski