A Revitalized Campus

Over the past decade, MSM has made sweeping capital improvements to its historic Morningside Heights campus, ensuring that the School’s facilities live up to the excellence of its instruction. These transformative projects, delivered on time and on budget, include: a magnificent renovation of Neidorff-Karpati Hall , MSM’s principal performance space designed by Shreve Lamb & Harmon, the architects of the Empire State Building; a gleaming new main entrance ; the new Baisley Powell Elebash Student Lounge , a beautifully designed, multi-faceted space to support all aspects of student life; 28 new practice rooms with sophisticated acoustic technology ; and two dance studios to support the Musical Theatre degree program launched in 2016.

Sound Fiscal Management and Stability

Beyond its culture of artistic excellence and global reputation for leadership in music education, MSM takes pride in its strong track record of sound fiscal management . Over the past decade, the School has operated within its means, only once running at a modest deficit, when in FY21 significant additional expenses were necessary to make the campus safe for learning at the height of the global pandemic. In recent years, MSM has both implemented cost reductions that are smart and prudent and expanded its offerings. A burgeoning donor base has bolstered the School’s growth and aspirations.

“To study music one needs an organized and systematic approach. The art of studying classical music helped me through the rigorous training required in my field and gave me the confidence and skills to pursue a medical career.”

DR. CYNTHIA A. BOXRUD

BM ’78

Facial Ophthalmic, Cosmetic, and Reconstructive Surgeon Faculty, Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA

“ Great schools turn out great citizens. Manhattan School of Music has given the world artistic leaders, as well as persons who make our lives better each day, by allowing its students to grow in a giving and caring environment.”

Leonard Slatkin

HONDMA ’13

MSM Trustee and Six-time Grammy Award Winner; Directeur Musical Honoraire, Orchestre National de Lyon Music Director Laureate, Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Conductor Laureate, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

“ Manhattan School of Music gave me the chance to imagine my own art, while rooting me deeply in the fundamentals.”

Joshua Cohen

BM ’01

2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction, The Netanyahus

“ Manhattan School of Music is a conservatory that excels to the finest music education and performance standards today. As a conservatory, this community of learning nurtures curiosity and responsibility and is a unique sharing environment for life.”

THOMAS HAMPSON

MSM Artistic Advisory Board member and Honorary Professor of Distance Learning

Grammy Award Winning baritone

The MSM Musical Theatre virtual production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 2021

“...no honor or performance could be more meaningful to me than last year’s dazzling and resourceful production of my show...” –Rupert Holmes

For over a century, Manhattan School of Music has helped talented musicians from across the globe realize their full potential, launch successful careers, and build fulfilling musical lives.

Competing for and Supporting Talented Students

Manhattan School of Music is one of seven independent music conservatories in the United States. The vast majority of musicians in the most highly regarded orchestras worldwide come from these and other global conservatories. The competition between conservatories, and prestigious colleges and universities with music programs, is fierce. Growing the endowment would allow MSM to offer more competitive scholarship packages, boosting the School’s already robust recruitment efforts and enhancing MSM’s ability to attract and retain young musicians of the best technical and artistic ability.

Annual tuition at MSM for the 2023–24 academic year is $53,500 making scholarships essential for the majority of students. While the School’s location in the nation’s performing arts capital has clear advantages for aspiring artists and functions, along with our extraordinary faculty, as one of the School’s central recruitment tools, the city’s high cost of living makes financial aid support especially necessary.

Although 87% of MSM students receive some level of scholarship support, the School’s modest endowment means that only 5% of students receive full tuition scholarships. In fact, the average scholarship is just $22,000, well below the cost of annual tuition. After graduating, as our talented students take wing – in orchestras and ensembles, on opera and musical stages, as soloists, teachers, and arts administrators – they deserve the chance to embrace their futures without the burden of significant student loan debt.

“ Attending Manhattan School of Music changed my way of thinking about music, and what career path within it I might take. My professors made me believe in myself where I was full of uncertainty; they encouraged and enabled me to be my creative best... I owe our beloved school everything.”

RUPERT HOLMES

’67, H on DMA ’21 Tony Award-winning Composer

Among Manhattan School of Music’s world-renowned faculty are four-time Tony Award-winner Boyd Gaines, Grammy-nominated Steinway Artist Elio Villafranca, and Principal Associate Concertmaster Sheryl Staples of the New York Philharmonic, teaching artists who understand firsthand what it takes to build a successful music career in the 21st century.

“I won’t deny that I’ve drifted from a career in music to one in economics, but I still treasure and frequently tap the reservoir of musical knowledge, appreciation, and love of music that comes with a Manhattan School of Music degree.”

Jared Bernstein

BM ’78

Chair, White House Council of Economic Advisers

The Future

As MSM enters its second century, one thing is clear: while it is a thriving institution with a newly enhanced campus, strong enrollment, and a deep bench of superb artist-teachers, the School has a pressing need to build a larger endowment to secure the School’s future and allow the institution to do what it does so well even better

Providing the in-depth, personalized training MSM students receive (including weekly private lessons), as well as student health and other services, comes at considerable annual expense. Increasing the size and impact of its endowment will enable MSM to provide more competitive scholarships to talented students whose financial means often do not equal their exceptional musical gifts . Having the ability to offer more scholarships will allow MSM to attract and retain students from a broad range of communities and backgrounds in a highly competitive enrollment landscape.

Very importantly, growing the endowment will also provide the School with greater financial security and the ability to weather economic downturns and unexpected events. In addition to its virtue as an important enrollment tool, a more substantial endowment would provide a reliable, consistent source of funding for the School’s general operations, enabling MSM to lessen its dependence on tuition.

“ Studying at Manhattan School of Music has been life changing. The generous scholarship I have received inspires me to give back. I hope that one day I will be able to help students like me achieve their goals just as I have been helped and build a platform for classical music in Barbados, my home country.”

Fernando Watts

BM ’22, MM ’24

Classical Voice

Our graduate program in Orchestral Performance, chaired by David Chan, Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (above, center), seeks to produce polished musicians of the highest artistic caliber. Students are prepared intensively in the orchestral repertoire for careers as symphonic players by a faculty made up of players of major New York orchestras.

“ Manhattan School of Music’s Opera Studies Program is one of the best professional training programs in the world today. It teaches students what it truly means to be an opera singer. I can’t imagine having chosen a better place to prepare for my career.”

Yunpeng Wang

MM ’13

Metropolitan Opera Artist