American conservatories have been redesigned from without — through an increasingly high level of applicants. In the United States, we have no national network of government-sanctioned schools of music. No national conservatory. Our high-level schools are schools to the world. And the students get better every year.
Now, people play the piano so well, it can be hard to look for more. To some extent, almost every excellent college looks at demographics in choosing a new class. Some geographic balance, a balance of women and men, a potential student’s extra strengths and commitments. In music schools, we think of “meritocracy.” Often, we imagine that admission is based just on what we hear. Can even a very perceptive jury of pianists assess someone’s lifelong musical potential by hearing a few minutes of playing?
