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Innovators, Events, Honors

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 108 NOVEMBER 6, 2019

Who Hits the Highest Note? THR’s Top 25 Music

Schools answers that and other questions (like where

Danny Elfman snuck in for gamelan classes) By Jeff Bond

F

or years, music schools could be divided into two camps: conser-

vatory-style programs that concentrated on classical training,

and others that focused on media scoring degrees for film and

TV work. Lately, however, those lines have been blurring, with even the

esteemed Juilliard School branching out into the cinematic arts (or at

least offering a summer seminar).

In some ways, that blurring makes picking a music school even

harder. So, to help, THR once again presents its annual Top 25 Music

Schools list, ranking the best of the best. To calculate the rankings,

the magazine relied on the results of a survey sent to more than

1,500 members of the Society of Composers & Lyricists.

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COLUMBIA COLLEGE

CHICAGO

Upon graduation,

students leave campus with a

demo reel that showcases

their professionalism and

artistry — and after a two-year

master’s program that includes

training in film, TV, advertis-

ing, video games and other

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THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL

NEW YORK

Juilliard has been train-

ing musicians since 1905 — long

before it moved to Lincoln Center

in 1969 — but until very recently

its curriculum had been limited

to mostly pure music study. If you

wanted to learn media scoring,

you needed to look elsewhere. This

year, though, president Damian

Woetzel announced the first of

a series of summertime mini-

courses, like introduction to music

for film and television, taught

by composer Nicholas Britell

(Succession). It also has expanded

its global reach, opening The

Tianjin Juilliard School in China.

TUITION $41,310

NOTABLE ALUMS John Williams,

Thelonious Monk

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USC THORNTON

SCHOOL OF MUSIC

LOS ANGELES

USC remains the go-to college for

budding film composers looking

to get into film scoring — and

not just because of its Hollywood-

adjacent location. Its graduate

programs have students laboring

on 100-plus projects a year, offer-

ing them opportunities to work

at professional facilities, like the

Clint Eastwood Scoring Stage on

the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank.

“The mere fact that I went to USC

has opened a lot of doors for me,”

says composer Leanna Primiani

(The Bad Seed). “There’s a sim-

patico with other Trojans, a big

network that is so amazing.”

TUITION $57,256

NOTABLE ALUMS Jerry Goldsmith,

Christophe Beck

Top Music

Schools

The Juilliard Orchestra was conducted by

Marin Alsop at Carnegie Hall in 2018.