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Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College

Musician entering the Oberlin Conservatory

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, located in Oberlin, Ohio, was founded in 1865 and is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Students of Oberlin Conservatory enter a very broad network within the music world, as the school's alumni can be found in most major professional ensembles. Admission is based primarily on an extremely competitive audition. Over 1400 musicians from around the world apply for a freshman class of around 120. It is one of the few American conservatories to be completely attached to a liberal arts college (Oberlin College, allowing students the opportunity to seriously pursue degrees in both music and a traditional liberal arts subject via the five year Double-Degree program). Oberlin College and Conservatory pride themselves on being almost exclusively undergraduate. The faculty's primary focus is the development of students as musicians, artists, and people.

In an interview between Frank J. Oteri and Tim Weiss, the coach of the famous contemporary music ensemble "eight blackbird," Weiss states "One advantage [of Oberlin] is that there are only undergraduates, and the reason I think this is an advantage is that at a school like Juilliard or other schools you might name that have a very strong or large population of graduate students is that those students, by their nature, tend to be somewhat more vocationally minded. They are understandably worried about their next step as musicians: How are they going to enter the industry? How are they going to make a living? And because of that, that can trickle down. The nice thing at Oberlin is that they are immensely talented, but they're not really concerned about their future. They might be a little bit, but it's not what occupies their thoughts. They are thinking about music as an art form. They're preoccupied with how they're going to change the artistic culture. And I think that's actually very important."

The conservatory also contains the largest collection of Steinway pianos in the world, with the exception of the Steinway factory.

Minoru Yamasaki designed the conservatory building in 1963. The style of the building closely resembles Yamasaki's later design of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The conservatory offers undergraduate degrees in:

*Composition

*Jazz Studies

*Technology In Music And Related Arts (TIMARA)

*Organ

*Piano

*Vocal Performance

*Music Education

*Music Theory

*Music History

*Historical Performance

*Instrumental Music Performance for Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, Trumpet, Trombone, Bassoon, Classical Saxophone, Horn, Tuba, Violin, Viola, Double Bass, Cello, Harp and Classical Guitar

*Percussion

• Eric Arbiter, bassoonist
• Cory Arcangel, computer artist
• Sibbi Bernhardsson, violinist, Pacifica Quartet
• MaVynee Betsch, piano and voice
• Salvatore Champagne, tenor
• Brian Chase, drummer Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Laura Cline, violist
• Stanley Cowell, jazz pianist
• Jeremy Denk, pianist
• eighth blackbird (all members), contemporary music sextet
• Monica Ellis, bassoonist
• Peter Evans, trumpeter
• Franco Farina, tenor
• Simin Ganatra, violinist, Pacifica Quartet
• Kyle Gann, composer
• Denyce Graves, mezzo-soprano
• Moses Hogan, conductor, composer, and arranger
• David Hoose, conductor
• Paul Horn, flute, saxophones
• International Contemporary Ensemble, contemporary music ensemble
• Steven Isserlis, cellist
• John Kennedy (musician), composer and conductor
• Carla Kihlstedt, violinist/singer
• Alex Klein, oboist
• Jennifer Koh, violinist
• Judy Kuhn, actress/singer
• Scott Lawton, conductor
• Rhoda Pinsley Levin, pianist [1][2]
• Emily Manzo, pianist
• David Maslanka, composer
• James McBride, saxophonist, composer, and author of the New York Times best-seller, The Color of Water.
• Charles McGuire, musicologist
• Kevin McHugh, pianist
• David Miller, tenor, member of the multi-platinum operatic pop quartet Il Divo
• Amy X Neuburg, composer/singer/electronic artist
• James Paul, conductor
• George Rose, choral conductor
• Ned Rothenberg, woodwind multi-instrumentalist/composer
• Christopher Rouse, Pulitzer Prize winning composer [3]
• Greg Saunier, drummer Deerhoof
• Shinkoyo, art+music collective Shinkoyo, Sadjeljko
• Robert Spano, conductor
• Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboist
• William Grant Still, composer (did not graduate)
• Edward Tarr, trumpeter and musicologist
• Jon Theodore, drummer The Mars Volta
• Carol Wincenc, flutist
• Gene Young, composer, conductor, trumpet player
• David Zinman, conductor
• John Sandor, tenor

• Conservatory Website
• Conservatory of Music on Oberwiki
• Oberlin College Archives, see Record Group 10 for Conservatory-specific material
• Oberlin Woodwind Ensemble with director George E. Waln, circa 1948-51 (photo)

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