“Life for young students at the Cleveland Institute of Music is about to change dramatically,” writes Zachary Lewis in Sunday’s (3/20) Plain Dealer (Cleveland). “On Thursday, the school announced plans to replace its current preparatory program with a comprehensive, more demanding program called the Academy. The model, which goes into effect next fall but already has met with mixed reactions, obliges most pre-college students to take a range of music courses in addition to private lessons, and entails significant new performance and review requirements. Along with these comes higher tuition…. Currently, most preparatory (that is, not college-level) students at CIM only take private lessons. At other schools, meanwhile, including some in Cleveland, young players also give recitals, submit to assessment, and take music theory and group performance classes. The Academy checks all of those boxes and more … including orchestras. It applies to all non-beginning students in fifth grade or higher…. [President and Chief Executive Paul] Hogle said … he’s fully aware the school stands to lose students over the change, but said that’s a chance CIM has to take as it seeks to remain competitive with other national conservatories and differentiate itself from peers in Northeast Ohio.”
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