What is a music conservatory?
I suppose at some time in history, the name “conservatory” implied something about the focus of a music school, but currently I am aware of no international convention which qualifies an institute of higher learning to be a “conservatory,” as opposed to a “school,” or an “academy.” This is not to say that all places of college music study are the same. Far from it. It simply means that one has to look beyond the name before making assumptions about the value of the program. Differences between schools tend to orbit around three elements: The kind of programs offered, the amount of non-musical study in the curriculum, and the environment in which the learning experience takes place. Together, these determine the types of young musicians the school will attract. And it is the students themselves who then create the “character” of the learning experience. This last idea may seem a bit cloudy at the moment, but it is just a fancy way of emphasizing that much of what you learn in any school
