Longy School of Music of Bard College

Zabriskie House
The Longy School of Music
Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Longy School of Music is a conservatory located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory. The Longy School also serves as a community music school with preparatory programs for children and high-school age musicians, and classes for non-professional adult musicians. As of the 2007-08 academic year, the conservatory has 223 students, with a further 925 students enrolled in its preparatory and continuing education classes. Approximately 34% of Longy's students are from countries outside the United States. In 2008, Longy's undergraduate acceptance rate was listed as 67%. Of those admitted, 41% ultimately enrolled.

History

The Longy School of Music
Garden Street entrance

The Longy School was founded in Boston in 1915 by Georges Longy, a French-born oboist and graduate of the Paris Conservatory who had joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1898. Upon his retirement in 1925, his daughter, Renée Longy-Miquelle, succeeded him as Director. She recruited several of Georges Longy's Boston Symphony colleagues as faculty members and established Dalcroze Eurhythmics as an important part of the School's curriculum.

The School moved across the Charles River to Cambridge in 1930, and in 1937 took up residence in the stone mansion at One Follen Street, originally built in 1889 by railroad baron Edwin Hale Abbot. During that time, the Longy School had a close relationship with Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges. Many of Harvard’s most talented music students, including Elliott Carter and Daniel Pinkham crossed the Cambridge Common to study with Longy’s performance faculty. (See also the List of notable alumni). Between 1938 and 1944, the pedagogue and theoretician Nadia Boulanger taught advanced courses in harmony, composition, and counterpoint at the Longy School and established a tradition of focus on music theory and composition that continues to characterize the school to the present day.

Recent leaders of the school include violinist Roman Totenberg, Director from 1978 to 1985, pianist Victor Rosenbaum, Director from 1985 to 2001, and Kwang-Wu Kim, President from 2001 to 2006. Rosenbaum's tenure as Director saw the establishment of the opera and modern American music departments as well as a growth in student numbers from 600 to 1,200, and in the annual budget from $600,000 to $3.5 million. The current President is Karen L. Zorn, who took up her post in 2007.

On April 1, 2010, the Boston Globe reported that the Longy School was in negotiations to become a graduate school of Bard College. If successful, the school would develop a Master's degree in teaching and would include Bard College in its name. President Zorn began preliminary talks with Bard's president, Leon Botstein in July 2009. At the same time, the faculty began a unionization drive, and in January 2010, there was a vote of 51 to 32 in favor of forming a union. Three months later, Longy announced a staff restructuring which resulted in 37 of its 188 teachers (all of whom are part-time) being laid off. In an open letter to President Zorn on March 23, 2010, the president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, stated the trade union's support of its members at Longy and asked Zorn to re-consider the lay-offs.

Facilities

The Rey-Waldstein Building

Pickman Hall

In the 1990s, Longy School began a building programme to add facilities and renovate existing ones. The programme included construction of the Bakalar Music Library, which opened in 1992; acquisition and restoration of The Rey-Waldstein Building; and renovation and expansion of the Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall.

The Rey-Waldstein Building

In 1998, the Longy School purchased a new building at 33 Garden Street to add further performance and practice space as well as classrooms and offices. The building is named in honor of Margaret Rey and H.A. Rey, the creators of Curious George and longtime supporters of Longy, and Margaret Rey’s parents, Felix and Gertrude Waldstein. In 2001 the Longy School received an award from the Cambridge Historical Society for the quality of its restoration. Further renovations to the building's previously unfinished basement in 2005 provided new space for a dedicated percussion studio, student lounge areas and further practice rooms.

Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall

The Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall, originally built in 1970, is the Longy School of Music's primary performance space. Named in honour of Edward M. Pickman, President of the Board of Trustees from 1955–1959, the 300-seat birch-lined hall provides a setting for masterclasses and both solo and chamber performances. The hall was designed by the Boston architectural firm, Huygens and Tappe (now Tappe Associates, Inc.). The completion of its major renovation in 1993 was marked with a concert that included the world premiere of Howard Frazin's Amid a Crowd of Stars. Over 250 concerts now take place in Pickman hall each year, many of which are free and open to the public. The Pacifica Quartet, Longy School's artists-in-residence, perform four chamber concerts per year in the hall as well as giving master classes in chamber music performance.

Programs of study

The Longy School conservatory offers two four-year undergraduate programs: Undergraduate Diploma, and Bachelor of Music Degree (the latter in conjunction with Emerson College). At graduate level the School offers three two-year programs: Master of Music Degree, Graduate Performance Diploma, and Artist Diploma (for exceptionally gifted performers). The following majors are available at both undergraduate and graduate level:

• Composition
• Organ
• Piano
• Strings
• Voice
• Woodwinds and Brass

The graduate level offers additional majors in:

• Collaborative piano
• Dalcroze Eurhythmics
• Early Music
• Modern American Music
• Opera
• Chamber music

Notable alumni of the Longy School of Music

Notable former students and alumni of the Longy School of Music include:

• Elliott Carter (composer)
• Schuyler Chapin (former General Manager New York Metropolitan Opera, Dean of Columbia University School of the Arts)
• Alexandra du Bois (composer)
• Ralph Farris (violist, violinist, composer, and conductor)
• Anton Kuerti (pianist, music teacher and composer)
• Dmitri Nabokov (opera singer and translator)
• Jean Papineau-Couture (composer)
• Daniel Pinkham (composer, organist, and harpsichordist)
• Greg Sandow (music critic, composer)

Notable teachers at the Longy School of Music

Notable faculty at Longy include

• Kenneth Amis (tuba player and holder the International Brass Chair at the Royal Academy of Music in London)
• Charlie Banacos (jazz and improvisation)
• Phoebe Carrai (Baroque cellist)
• Jonathan Cohler (clarinetist, conductor, chamber music coach)
• Randall Hodgkinson (piano)
• Thomas Meglioranza (baritone)
• Pacifica Quartet (Visiting Artists in Chamber Music)
• Kenneth Radnofsky (classical saxophonist)
• Eric Rosenblith (violinist)
• Peter Serkin (pianist)
• Roman Totenberg (violinist)
• Jayne West (soprano)

Past faculty have included

• Olga Averino (soprano and vocal pedagogue)
• E. Power Biggs (organist)
• Nadia Boulanger (composer, conductor, and music theorist)
• Sarah Caldwell (conductor and opera company director)
• John Ernest Cook (Prolific composer and organist)
• Edward Downes (musicologist and critic)
• Walter Piston (composer and music theorist)

External links

• Longy School of Music Official Site