The Longy School of Music offers degree or diploma programs in twelve departments. These are well conceived and richly appointed with numerous specialized courses. In addition, several special features of the curriculum provide defining experiences for Longy students, bringing students from different departments together, and encouraging collaboration, exploration, and musical and personal growth.

Experiential Education

Experiential Education is a vital component of Longy's Conservatory curriculum, designed to prepare student-musicians for an increasingly diverse and complex world, to prepare them - in the words of our mission statement - "to make a difference in the world."

Required of all students, this two-semester course includes interactive presentations, discussions, and readings. Students strengthen their communication skills and understanding of audience education, public advocacy for music and the arts, and entrepreneurship. They are challenged to think more broadly about music, its role in society, their career options, and the best use of their skills.

The first semester of the course includes the following sessions:

• Introductory thinking: This session asks students to address key questions, including how do we approach and present music, what is music's relation to other art disciplines, and what can musicians learn from other art disciplines. Consideration of artistic disciplines other than music allows students to grapple with issues of familiarity, accessibility, and audience expectations.
• Writing about oneself: In- and out-of-class writing exercises lead students to question who they are and why they do what they do. These progress from creative exercises to the production of preliminary biographies, résumés, and publicity materials. At the same time, students develop preliminary ideas for the second-semester project, which will be carried out individually or in a small group.
• Creating a project and interacting with your audience: Students consider what they wish to present in their project, and develop a plan for gaining the necessary musical and practical expertise. They are guided through a range of issues such as networking, selecting a venue, and gauging a presentation to an audience. By the end of this unit, students have submitted drafts of their project proposals and have identified a Longy faculty mentor who advises them on the project's topic (for example, the music to be taught/performed or the information or skills to be conveyed to the "audience").
• Defining the project: The class becomes something of a laboratory, as students try out their ideas, with guest moderators helping students sharpen their thinking and skills.
• Refining the project: Students make a formal in-class presentation on their project and submit their final project proposal in written form.

Projects can include students working as resident musicians in schools on a focused topic, integrating specific music into non-music school curricula, or offering musical demonstrations, lectures, or performances in non-traditional venues. Most projects require multiple visits.

While implementing their projects in the second semester, students meet as a class monthly and with their faculty mentor regularly, on a mutually agreeable schedule. They will also report to students currently enrolled in the first semester of the program.

Chamber Music

Much of Longy's musical ethos derives from chamber music and, more broadly, the essential experience of collaborating with other musicians in a small ensemble. Instrumental and vocal students perform frequently in faculty-coached ensembles, usually every semester. A wide range of related offerings supports this practical experience, including courses in chamber music coaching and literature. Special masterclasses allow ensembles to work directly with distinguished chamber performers.

Improvisation

Longy musicians practice solo and ensemble improvisation in a number of creative and practical settings, and the School requires students in the Undergraduate Diploma and Master of Music programs to take at least one improvisation course. Offerings in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Modern American Music, Voice, and Early Music help students create improvised performances that both elaborate existing musical material and express entirely original ideas. Systematic and inspiring teaching in these areas allows students to develop deep levels of creativity, while cultivating a responsive musicianship valuable in all contexts.

Large Ensembles

The Longy Chamber Orchestra, consisting of all string, woodwind, and brass students, performs under the direction of music director Jeffrey Rink a wide range of smaller orchestra literature, from Baroque and twenty-first-century music to the symphonies of Schumann and Brahms.

The orchestra presents five concerts in Pickman Hall each year, with occasional off-campus performances, and also performs in choral concerts and Opera at Longy productions. Guest conductors typically conduct two programs per year, providing an opportunity for students to work with outstanding musicians from around the world. Recent conductors have included David Douglass, Isaiah Jackson, Anne Manson, Jesús Medina, James Ross, David Seamon, James Sommerville, Ilan Volkov, and Scott Yoo. The final concert of each academic year is devoted to works performed with student concerto competition winners. Each spring, the orchestra also participates in readings and performances of works by Longy student composers.

Supplementing the Longy Chamber Orchestra's activities are concerts presented by the Longy Chamber Winds, most recently conducted by the distinguished wind-ensemble specialist Frank Battisti. These provide an additional opportunity for woodwind and brass students to explore seldom-performed repertoire and develop specialized wind-ensemble techniques.

Longy Conservatory vocalists may elect to participate in the Longy Chamber Chorus (Richard A.A. Larraga, conductor), an ensemble based in the School's Continuing Studies program and comprised of experienced choral singers from the area. The Chorus's schedule includes several Pickman Hall and off-campus performances each year, including a concert accompanied by the Longy Chamber Orchestra. The Chorus often features its Conservatory members as soloists.

Longitude

Longitude, a new music ensemble, is dedicated to twentieth- and twenty-first-century chamber works and performs three to four major concerts each academic year. Its repertory extends from works by masters such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Hindemith to premieres by contemporary composers. The ensemble often works directly with composers, including Leon Kirchner, John Harbison, Boris Tishchenko, and Longy's own composition faculty and students.

Mind/Body Program

Realizing one's full potential as a musician goes beyond what a student learns in lessons and classes. The quality of performance depends not only on musical skills but also on the integration of physical, artistic, and emotional security, and the freedom to perform with more authentic and communicative expression. Longy's Mind/Body Program features faculty practitioners trained to help musicians reach their full technical and expressive potential, and teach them to prevent and alleviate injury and pain. The Program offers two body-based disciplines: the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method®, as well as mental skills training, particularly in the area of performance anxiety.

The Alexander Technique works largely through kinesthetic awareness of the head, neck, and back relationship. F. M. Alexander found that this relationship not only reflects our physical, mental, and emotional states, but also plays an essential role in governing the overall coordination of our various faculties. Musicians have long recognized the Technique as an effective aid for improving coordination, perception, and control, and for expressing their artistic intentions.

The Feldenkrais Method® educates the body/mind kinesthetically through precise observation and experiencing of the body's natural movement patterns that underlie and strengthen subtle movements of the hands and fingers, the feet and toes, and the breath and vocal apparatus. Students learn how to access skeletal movement for greater mobility to ensure connection and support in playing and performing, and how to rediscover natural coordination and integrated physical functioning.

Help for psychological stress incorporates individual and group training and counseling to help musicians deal with performance anxiety, career decisions, practicing, auditions, student-teacher relationships, surviving criticism, improving self-esteem, and other issues that can limit or strengthen a performance. Mental skills training involves a combination of proven techniques, including deep guided visualization, relaxation techniques, and cognitive techniques to eliminate negative thought patterns.

The Mind/Body Program also provides guidance in case of physical injury by referring performers to well-informed medical practitioners.

Master of Music Degree
Graduate Performance Diploma
Artist Diploma
Dalcroze Certificate + License
Undergraduate Diploma
Bachelor of Music Degree

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