Scott Bakshis of the Chicago Youth Symphony recently compiled a list of what the requirements for all the top bass schools are. This is a meta list derived from the requirements of Indiana University, Boston University, Rice University, Curtis, Juilliard, Eastman, and many others. If bass students can have this repertoire under their fingers by early senior year (high school), they can feel confident about their college prospects:
- two concerto movements from Dragonetti, Koussevitzky, or Bottesini
- two Baroque Sonata movements
- two movements of Solo Bach (any suite, any key)
- etudes from Simandl, Storch-Hrabe, Sturm, and Kreutzer
- Beethoven Symphony No. 5 mvt 3 (complete)
- two Brahms excerpts (Symphonies 1-4)
- two Mozart excerpts (Symphonies 35-41)
- all three octave major and minor scales
Also see my post about what it takes to really succeed as a music performance major.
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Hello Jason,
I have been enjoying your blog and am now benefiting from your top double bass college picks. I am an older student, returning to music after 20 years, as a post bac. I am no less committed to learning and excelling than a younger student and the personal sacrifices I have made to return to studying double bass are testament to my commitment. I am looking for the path forward but have been getting less than inspiring responses to the idea of an older student entering some of the more prestigious music colleges. Have you had experience with older students? or is college music education really geared toward young students. I am currently attending Portland State University, but am looking to move to a more performance oriented environment.
Hi Dianna! Sure, I’ve taught older students for years. In terms of whether college music education is geared toward young students, I think that it varies a lot from school to school and from teacher to teacher. Some teachers are incredibly open-minded and age doesn’t factor in, while others definitely see it as a “young person’s game.”
I can give you some recommendations of places if you like–shoot me an email at feedback@contrabassconversations.com and I’ll happily send along some recs!