Visual & Performing Arts

Program Description

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

		Program Description Program Overview Get Free Info Web Site Visit Email a Friend

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), founded in 1917, is a nationally prominent conservatory with an international reputation and student body. Enrollment is kept small (400 total students) to ensure close student-faculty interaction and frequent and regular performance opportunities for every student throughout the program. Significant personal attention for each student and a collaborative and intimate atmosphere guarantee that students receive intense and rigorous preparation for careers in music.

The Bay Area’s public transportation provides quick access to downtown San Francisco and the Civic Center, the city’s cultural center and the site of the Conservatory’s new, state-of-the-art facility, which opened in the fall of 2006. From its new location at Civic Center, the Conservatory will strengthen ties with the San Francisco Symphony, the Opera, and other arts and educational organizations, further developing its intellectual and musical collaborations. Students already enjoy free tickets to the symphony, the ballet, the opera, and various theatrical offerings. Museums, galleries, and the remarkable physical beauty of San Francisco—its parks, beaches, views, and neighborhoods—provide much to explore and enjoy.

Performing is a major aspect of student life at SFCM. Students not only present their required solo and chamber recitals but also participate actively in the major ensembles, collaborate with classmates and faculty members in performances, and have positions with Bay Area choirs, orchestras, and other ensembles.

Every year, the Conservatory’s Community Service Program sends students into the community, both as soloists and ensembles, to perform at hospitals, senior centers, schools, and other institutions. The popular Music To Go! program offers some 1,000 paid-performance opportunities each year to students who audition to be on call for private and corporate events throughout the Bay Area. Outside the Conservatory, students augment their study as members of regional opera companies, orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and choruses; this also allows students to make important professional connections while they are still students. Alumni are counted among the members of national and international arts organizations, including the Chicago Symphony, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Opera and Opera Orchestra and Ballet Orchestra, Peabody Trio, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Stuttgart Staatsoper.

San Francisco’s Conservatory of Music students receive instruction from a world-class faculty in an atmosphere that is at once intense and informal. From the studio to the classroom, SFCM faculty members are passionately committed to the development of the individual, both artistically and intellectually. Personal attention is a hallmark of an SFCM education.

Program Facilities

 New facilities include a concert hall (435 seats), sure to be one of the finest concert halls of its size in California; the Sol Joseph Recital Hall (130 seats); the Osher Salon (100 seats), a multiuse performance/teaching space; a new, roof-top library, offering more than 40,000 volumes, scores, and periodicals and more than 10,000 recordings; a computer center and the electronic composition studio; two professional recording studios; a roof garden; forty-two practice rooms; forty-four teaching studios; fourteen classrooms; a student lounge; and a café.

Faculty, Visiting Artists, and Alumni

 SFCM faculty members are past and present members of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, San Francisco Opera and Opera Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Smithson Quartet, Francesca Trio, and others and perform internationally as soloists and chamber musicians. Recent master classes have been presented by John Adams, Gil Shaham, Ned Rorem, Paula Robison, Lynn Harrell, Jerry Hadley, Thomas Hampson, Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, Manuel Barrueco, Yo-Yo Ma, Hakan Hardenberger, Menachem Pressler, Gil Kalish, and Frederica von Stade. Nationally known alumni include pianist-conductor Jeffrey Kahane, pianist Robin Sutherland, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, guitarist David Tanenbaum, and Naumburg Award–winning cellist Hai-Ye Ni. Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern studied at the Conservatory as children.

Student Performance Opportunities

 Approximately 400 events are presented at the Conservatory each year, featuring solo and chamber recitals by students and faculty members, small ensembles, fully staged operas, and symphonic programs. Conservatory ensembles include the Orchestra, Opera Theatre, Opera Workshop, Musical Theatre Workshop, Baroque Ensemble, Guitar Ensemble, Percussion Ensemble, New Music Ensemble, and a host of other smaller, specialized groups. Chamber music, especially for strings and piano, is a signature program at SFCM.

Application Procedures

Deadline--freshmen and transfers: December 1. Notification date--freshmen and transfers: April 1. Required: high school transcript, college transcript(s) for transfer students, minimum 2.0 high school GPA, 2 letters of recommendation, audition, minimum TOEFL score of 500/173 or minimum of 61 on TOEFL iBT for students for whom English is not the first language. Recommended: essay, SAT or ACT test scores. Auditions held 5 times on campus and off campus in Boston, MA; New York, NY; Chicago, IL; Interlochen, MI; Houston, TX; Oberlin, OH; Idyllwild, CA; videotaped performances are permissible as a substitute for live auditions for non-voice applicants residing outside of northern California and international applicants.

Contact

Ms. Chris Daly, Assistant Director of Admission, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, California 94102; 800-899-7326, fax: 415-503-6299.