Admissions
Vasiliki Tsouva
Doctoral Candidate: Chorusmaster Teatro Nacional Sucre, Ecuador
Click to meet our students
Welcome Prospective Students! We are excited that you have chosen to audition at Indiana University.
Indiana University attracts some of the brightest, most self-motivated, and most creative musicians. Our programs prepare students to succeed in professional opera, orchestral conducting, university teaching, symphonic choruses, and high level church ensembles or additional graduate studies. While at IU, students have access to an almost unlimited supply of professional vocal and instrumental musicians, and our graduate conductors regularly convene ad-hoc choral-orchestral concerts; conduct premieres of IU composers; prepare opera choruses for international guest conductors; travel, speak, and perform at major festivals and conferences; and explore interdisciplinary artistic endeavors.
Unique to Indiana University's Choral Department are our Morning Ensembles. Each day graduate students develop their conducting and rehearsal technique with a chorus of singers prepared to rehearse any music presented to them. These ensembles of skilled readers do not perform concerts and are solely designed for conductors to develop and refine gestural and rehearsal techniques in the presence of faculty and guest clinicians. Recent guests include Gary Wedow, conductor of New York City Opera, Robert Porco, conductor of Cincinnati and Cleveland Symphony Choruses, Dale Warland, John Nelson, Vance George, David Hayes, Amy Keiser, Don Moses, Ragnar Bolin, and Joerg Ritter of the Radio Chorus of Colon, Germany.
Daily life of graduate conducting students is intense, filled with rehearsals, practicum, and daily performances. A typical student might spend the morning in silent study and academic classes, the afternoon leading the University Singers or Symphonic Choir, the early evening rehearsing for an ad-hoc concert or performance art, followed by a community chorus or church rehearsal in Indianapolis in the evening, and end with a round of drinks with fellow conductors and faculty to decompress. We prepare conductors for professional work across the spectrum of choral and vocal music. Life at the IU Jacobs School of Music is fast-paced, packed with opportunities and resources for performance, academically rigorous, and at an unmatched musical level.
Because of our wealth of resources, we believe strongly in encouraging a non-competitive environment where faculty and graduate students work together to prepare concerts and all students receive equal and ample amount of podium time. We are a family that shares in each other's successes and failures, continually learning and broadening our understanding for music and performance.
Students who excel in our graduate conducting programs are highly motivated and experienced musicians who leap at every opportunity as well as craft their own performances. Recent student ad-hoc project include orchestral performances of arias from Don Giovanni, semi-staged productions of Gluck's Orfeo and Schumann's Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, a music-video installation at the School of Fine Arts Gallery, a rock inspired staged performance of Bach's St. John Passion, (Passionate Convictions) and a student-directed annual collaboration between the choral and sacred music programs to create a choral and organ music festival.
The Choral Department of Indiana University is a bustling environment with seven operas and two ballet choruses each year, thirteen choral ensembles, a pool of more than 400 gifted singers, and a music library with anything and everything imaginable. We invite you to browse our website for more information on our thriving graduate programs, the audition process, our ensembles and placement process, as well as our current and former faculty and students. Please do not hesitate to contact David Villanueva, our administrative director, with any questions. We are here to enable you to create beautiful music and lasting experiences before diving head-first into the professional choral world.
We look forward to meeting you and answering your questions.
