Transforming Music Education

Training more musicians

We’re not in the business of saying who can and cannot be a musician. The world needs more musicians, not fewer. There is a plethora of important work to do. Our alumni will go on to perform on the world’s stages, start music programs in under-resourced neighborhoods, bring healing to patients in hospitals, and make meaningful connections with individuals in marginalized communities.

Encouraging intrinsic motivation

We’ve noticed that music training traditionally starts early in life. Students often find their motivation outside of themselves (e.g., from their teachers). We disrupt this dynamic by reigniting each student’s own intrinsic motivation, empowering them to dream big, overcome obstacles, and explore who they are as artists. Our intensive career and life-coaching process helps students imagine a career based on what matters to them and the difference they want to make.

Developing a custom curriculum

Students discover or refine their ambitions about how to make a difference—their “why”—and chart their own pathway through the curriculum. We support the individual vision and passion of each student and provide the skills and experience they need to pursue their goals.

Valuing passion over perfection

We know that sometimes an emphasis on perfection can take the joy out of music-making, robbing musicians of the zeal that brought them to music in the first place. At Longy, we emphasize passion over perfection—which seems to bring out the best in our students musically.

Putting an emphasis on teaching

We believe the ability to teach is essential to a life in music. Whether it’s an individual lesson or an opera performance, Longy students learn how to engage any audience, anywhere, anytime. Every engagement is an opportunity to leave an audience more connected, inspired, appreciative, and informed.

As an undergraduate, Janet Lagah-Bona realized that she was more invested in composing her own music than in performing the works of others. Though she did not have traditional training as a composer, Janet was admitted to Longy because of her passion, potential, and drive to become the musician the world needed her to be. At Longy, she found teachers who helped her discover her own voice while opening the door to a world of knowledge about her heritage— including musicians and traditions that have long been ignored by traditional music education. “I felt like I could try totally new things I had never imagined before. At Longy, I figured out who I am as a composer. Now I can pay homage to where I’ve come from and my own cultural background. I’m adding to the tapestry of culture and history in my own way as a musician, an artist, and a creator.”

Welcoming All Music-Makers, All Music-Making

Welcoming everyone

We’re a place where all sorts of backgrounds are welcome and where all kinds of musicians succeed. We don’t care if students found music at age 2 or 22—we’ll meet them where they are and build on their lived experience. We’re constantly expanding our vision of the type of musicians who might make a life in music.

Auditioning for potential

We’ve abandoned the standard audition requirements intended to separate the “best from the rest.” Instead, we say: “Give us 15 minutes that shows us who you are as a musician.” When students are given agency to make their own choices and not conform to a proscribed way of how to be a musician, they present their whole selves and reveal their potential.

Removing financial barriers

To remove barriers for musicians who are not traditionally represented in conservatory education, Longy invests 50% of its revenue in financial aid. Nearly every student who attends receives support. We now grant more full scholarships than ever before.

Going beyond the canon

We know it’s important for our students to see themselves in the music and musicians that they study. That’s why we ensure that at least 25% of the repertoire they study comes from works written by women, composers of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and artists from other historically underrepresented communities. We overhauled and continue to examine and evolve how music theory and music history are taught— reevaluating who is included and who has been excluded.

Revising our curriculum

Our curriculum addresses equity—as well as diversity, inclusion, and belonging—head on. In our “Music and Civic Engagement” course, students learn how to let community needs guide the projects they work on, rather than the other way around. And in “Artist as Activist,” they learn specific ways they can play a role in changing the field of music.

Arson Fahim dreamed of a life in music. Music wasn’t just a passion—it felt like his reason for living. But as a citizen of Afghanistan—where the average family earns roughly $1,000 per year—he doubted his dream would become a reality. He knew that even if he was accepted at a conservatory, his family would never be able to afford it. That’s why, while he was excited to be accepted at Longy, he was absolutely ecstatic when he realized he had been granted a full scholarship for his studies. Arson arrived at Longy two weeks before the fall of Kabul in 2021— and before the Taliban seized the only school of music in Afghanistan, from which Arson had graduated. “I know firsthand the importance of access and opportunity—how it gives one the audacity to have dreams. That’s what Longy has done for me.”