College Tours through Boston: Berklee, BOCO, Emerson, and NEC
I was fortunate to be able to travel to Boston this week to visit a dear friend and also get some college tours in! Boston is saturated with higher education institutions and no shortage of opportunities to interact with the arts. Personally, I LOVE Boston, its history, its food, architecture, and people, so I’ll definitely have to make a trip back to see all the schools I missed on this trip!
Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory
My week started with a tour of Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory (affectionately known as BOCO). My friend teaches composition at Berklee, so he was able to give me a detailed tour of the spaces, and I also met with another faculty member who teaches ear training. They both accompanied me around the school and gave much appreciated insider insights into the school. Coming from a traditional campus environment, I was immediately struck by the lack of a “campus”. Both Berklee and BOCO are a collection of buildings scattered throughout the back bay area of Boston, so your campus is literally integrated into the city. There are almost 7500 undergraduate students that attend, which is one of the bigger music programs I’ve seen. Berklee boasts state of the art recording and electronic music studios, a beautiful student center that can be transitioned into a performance space, and multiple concert and recital halls. Everything happens in a few skyscrapers within a few block radius. You’ll always see students walking around the area with instrument cases slung on their backs, so you know you’ll be in good musical company. With majors in jazz, contemporary music, music business and management, electronic production and design, songwriting, and more, Berklee is a great place to be for the future rock star.
Boston Conservatory is Berklee’s more buttoned-up cousin. If you’re looking for that traditional classical music training, BOCO is right up your alley. It’s a much smaller program with a little over 800 students, so the classroom atmosphere will be a bit more intimate. Majors include music performance, dance, and theater. With an exclusive educational partnership with Silkroad, BOCO students get to collaborate with some of the world’s greatest musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma and Rhiannon Giddens. Of course, dozens of other master musicians and guest artists are invited to perform and teach at BOCO each year.
Emerson College
Next on my tour list was Emerson College! Emerson is on the edge of Boston Commons (if you’re not familiar with Boston, think of the Commons as Boston’s Central Park), which becomes an extension of the school. Much like Berklee, Emerson is not a traditional college campus, but rather a few high-rise buildings lining Boylston Street, with the rest of the neighborhood interspersed throughout. The performing arts program at Emerson encompasses all things theater: musical theater, theater education and performance, stage production and design, lighting and sound design, acting, and more. With the Paramount Theatre as part of the academic buildings, students are always learning and performing in some of the best theaters in the country. Emerson is also a liberal arts college, so if you’re a theater major, about 40% of your total classes will be in the college of liberal arts. In my opinion, having liberal arts closely integrated into your performance study is extremely valuable to not only expand your horizons as a student, but also help you connect with the world outside of your music or performance major.
My Emerson performing arts presentation was led by a few current students that represented a few different areas of the program: design, musical theater, and acting. They had interesting insight into the student body and community, demonstrating that many of their students come from all over the place and all walks of life. Located in the heart of the theater district of Boston, there are no shortage of opportunities to catch a great play or musical within a few block radius.
New England Conservatory
My final stop on my Boston tour was to New England Conservatory. Nestled in the rows of brownstones in the Back Bay area, NEC consists of four buildings literally across the street from Symphony Hall, home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Many BSO members are faculty at NEC, so you know you’d be receiving that top-notch conservatory training. NEC is a traditional conservatory-style music school, where the vast majority of your non-performance classes are in music theory, music history, ear training, etc., and there are a small amount of liberal arts requirements as part of the majors. However, for those students that are multi-interested and have the academic record to back them up, NEC hosts a dual-degree program with Tufts University and Harvard. NEC boasts some very famous alumni and produces high-quality musicians that are winning orchestral and performing positions every year.
If you’re looking for state-of-the-art practice rooms, you won’t find them at NEC (two of the buildings are historic landmarks!). However, you’ll never NOT have a practice room to use–there are over 200 large practice rooms across two buildings, plus students can use large rehearsal spaces and classrooms for personal practice if they’re not being used for rehearsals and classes. While the older building facilities are a little lackluster, Jordan Hall is one of the most stunning performance spaces I have ever seen. Seating just over 1000, the space is regularly used for student ensemble performances and guest artists. Seriously, it is gorgeous.
The Student Life and Performance Center is the newest building on campus, boasting modern facilities stacked up 10 stories, soaring ceilings, more performance halls, and student residences with panoramic views of the city. Students are required to live on campus for their first two years, and then are able to find their own housing after that. This building definitely feels more like it would host a community of students, rather than just individuals trying to find their way through a music degree. My tour guide, an Artist Diploma student, said she loves NEC because of the “kind yet competitive” environment that it fosters. Of course, there will be competition in real life, but your competitors can also be friends, colleagues, and fellow musicians.
While I did not officially tour Harvard, I walked around the campus (definitely more of a campus feel), and explored Cambridge. This area is SO cute, with local shops, lots of restaurants, green common spaces and parks, and is close to subway lines for easy travel. Overall it has more of that “college town” atmosphere. Not too far away from Harvard is Longy School of Music, which is a part of Bard College. These two will be on my tour list for next time I’m in Boston! There is still so much more to see in Boston, and I can’t wait to go back to continue my college tours.
Not working with me yet? Feeling stressed about your college search? Let’s chat.
