Juries, Public School Music Programs, and Being Hired In a Shrinking Field.

Juries. The single most terrifying time of the semester for most music students. My professors would take us in by instrument grouping. Percussion, brass, the one string student, a million guitar and bassists, pianists, woodwinds, and singers. To those of us performing, it was like being let into the lions den or to slaughter in the colosseum. Many of the faculty were accomplished pianists or guitarists and our talent pool never failed, so they mostly were the obvious choice. One semester a trumpet player won, a few semesters in a row a vocalist would win. One year it was close when Willie (the doubling Euphonium and Trombone player) came in second, but he couldn't beat the pianist from Oberlin Conservatory- which is in the top 5 conservatories in the world.

Public school music programs are not all the same. I went to a state school so we were nearer to the bottom of the barrel when it came to cost of attendance v. funding. My program was tiny, about 30 students until my final year when it jumped to 60. I always would meet people who were coming back to school for licenses or to get a second bachelors. All in all, the main factor for their decision was cost. The flagship campus had the best instruments and the best opportunities, but cost $8-10K MORE than my school in fees alone!

In the final two years of school I dubbed the program the "Conservatory Refugee Assistance Program"; no need to tell you what i really felt about my school. But in honesty I was working with Faculty who taught in some of the best and most expensive schools in Massachusetts. These prestigious schools included MIT, Harvard, New England Conservatory, and Berklee College of Music. One Professor even had five Degrees! Many of the other branches in the U Mass System had better funded music programs with severe runaway budgets, but we had the talent.
Many of our incoming or transfer students were accepted into top schools and ended up in my school because of cost. Some ran out of funding and had to give it up all together.

Paying for college is getting harder and harder and many public schools are accepting some high level applicants. This can raise the bar considerably and competition is a brutal, but effective teacher. Many of us saw films like "Black Swan" and "The Hunger Games" and could draw a paradigm between the fantasy and our realities. Music scholarships, competitions, and auditions are the real Hunger Games; some musicians do live a hand to mouth existence.

In my final semester, Oberlin Guy won the jury and a check for $2,700 in scholarship money, Willie got honorable mention and tickets to see the BSO, and I came in runner up for both, but was given a set of tickets to a really memorable performance of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. My competition was steep. I had grown so much and worked through a few panic attacks that semester, not to mention the burning calluses from hours of practice. I later learned from Der Professor (my favorite professor, who used to call us "dear students" but it rather sounded like "der schtudents", hence i refer to him as "der professor") that i was in the top 10 for one of the eight- $2,000 scholarships and a top seat. Juries are set up to not only assess your abilities and growth, but they all light a fire under your ass that brings the reality of music school into perspective into play.

As for Oberlin Guy, he is 15 years my senior and has been playing professionally for 10 years. I would have to practice more than my meager 3 hours a day to beat him. However, Boston is home to Berklee, New England Conservatory, Longy, Boston Conservatory, and the relatively new kid, Boston University (which recently saw one of its graduate students win a position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra). Competition in the arts is high, not to mention if you live in Boston and you are competing against students from the aforementioned schools, students from schools around the country, and around the world.

In my internship in Boston Public Schools, I happened to be there during some of the interview and screenings. It boiled down to three points,
1) Schooling- where you went and how high you've achieved).
2) Professional Gigs- What orchestras, bands, and teaching positions you've had- we had teachers who worked with the Boston Symphony, Boston Philharmonic, would take a week off and do a miniature tour during the school year, and ran the elite programs at New England Conservatory.
3) Marketability- would you be able to entice students and talent from around the city, the country, or even the world? We had a parent send in a brochure and DVD of their kid playing because they wanted to him to study with one of the guitar teachers. They also wanted to uproot their lives in a quiet suburb to move to inner-city Boston. No joke, these teachers can make or break a program. And no, the kid didn't get in.

Having a degree from a school with a good title, reputation, or alum list is a big thing in the music industry and music education is no different. So while in school use your juries and experiences to your advantage because it could be a hefty notch in your belt for your future career.