The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, celebrating its centennial, “has made clear its ambition to become one of the world’s premier music schools, hiring major artists and reshaping the curriculum to reflect the music world as it exists today,” writes Jesse Hamlin in Monday’s (10/30) San Francisco Chronicle. “That aspiration, says conservatory president David Stull, who arrived in 2013 … was signaled in 2006 when the conservatory moved from its longtime Sunset District home [to] Oak Street, close to Davies Hall, the San Francisco Opera and now SFJAZZ, [reflecting] the conservatory’s desire ‘to be in that pantheon,’ Stull says…. The conservatory has [created] two new programs: Roots, Jazz and American Music, a partnership with SFJAZZ … and Technology and Applied Composition, now in its third year…. Half the program’s 38 students are women.… All conservatory students are required to take ‘professional development’ business courses designed for musicians making their way in a wired-up, gig-economy world…. Next spring [will be] the groundbreaking of a planned 12-story building on Van Ness Avenue across from Davies Hall. Scheduled to open in 2020, the … structure will contain dormitories, two recital halls … a recording studio and restaurant.” A timeline and list of 100th-anniversary events are included.
Posted October 31, 2017
