New England Conservatory vs. Eastman

[jkeller]

Any SOTWers from either of these schools or have informed opinions about them? I have been accepted into both for a Masters in Jazz Performance and am having a hard time deciding which one to attend. The teachers at NEC are Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Steve Lacy and Allen Chase. Eastman has Ray Ricker and Walt Weiskopf. Thanks in advance for any advice or info.

[HonkBopSax]

NEC certainly has a larger core faculty that you might be interested in - they also have Bob Brookmeyer who is an amazing teacher. He led several big bands last year and they were smoking! Garzone splits his time between MA and new York, and what a lot of guys do are split their lessons between Bergonzi and Garzone or Brookmeyer. my vote goes to NEC.

[saxfriend]

Hi,

I was accepted to both Eastman and NEC for my Masters as well. I attended NEC and graduated in '91. My undergraduate teacher had gone to Eastman for his doctrate and his masters was at Julliard. He recommended Eastman, but I chose NEC. :( I thought the music scene would be better in Boston than in Rochester. What I found was NEC has many great performers who are part time teachers. Many of the 'name' performers are not great or even good teachers nor is there first concern for the students or to be teachers. And as stated in the previous post they are only there a day or two a week. If I had to do it again I would choose Eastman. I found the program at NEC to be somewhat disjointed and unorganized. I've had two teachers in the past that went to Eastman and they both highly recommended it. Good luck in your decision making.

Best regards,

Tom