Students enrolled in private lessons have the opportunity to perform in regularly scheduled recitals held in the Recital and Concert Halls. Preparatory Division students participate in master classes with distinguished visiting artists and with the Conservatory's Collegiate Division faculty. Off-campus and showcase performances are also arranged for students throughout the year. Certificate programs available.

First Steps at the Keyboard is a two-year course for the young pianist ages five through eight. Using the Peery Habits Piano Curriculum, each group class contains assignments in three categories:Muscular, Practical and Musical. Events include student recital and private evaluations.

Eurhythmics utilizes the natural desire for movement all children possess. Students are furnished with not just an understanding of music and knowledge of its written language, but a thorough sense and feeling for it. Among other benefits, the study of music through movement cultivates inner hearing and gives children a holistic understanding of musical elements such as pulse, meter, rhythm pattern, phrasing and form. This grounding in the basic language of music leads to a distinct advantage when learning a musical instrument.

The Prep Chamber Orchestra is an advanced, strings-only ensemble open to experienced players. The Prep Chamber Orchestra explores the wonderful string orchestra repertoire from Albinoni to Zorn, with some Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartók thrown in for good measure. Larger than a string quartet, smaller than a symphony orchestra, the Prep Chamber Orchestra provides the ideal setting for honing ensemble skills, exploring great compositions and making music with friends and colleagues.

Intermediate & Advanced Chamber Music ensembles emphasize quartet and trio repertoire, string and wind trios through sextets, two-piano literature, and guitar and harp ensembles. Priority is given to students enrolled for private lessons at the Preparatory Division; pre-formed groups are welcome.

Open to all students enrolled in the musicianship curriculum with permission of the department chair. Composition assignments are performed and discussed in class. Formal performances are presented in recital.

Level V: Sight singing with modes and remote modulation in 20th century idioms, polyrhythms, quintuplets, meters with unequal beats, tempo modulation, leading tone seventh chords, augmented sixth chords, Neapolitan chords, all intervals in a non-tonal context, fugue.

Level III: Sight singing material to include seventh chords, rhythmic patterns of two against three, inversions of triads and dominant seventh chords, non-tonal use of thirds, theme & variations and rondo form. Level IV: Sight singing with secondary dominants and chromatic non-harmonic tones, small subdivisions of the beat, changing meters, inversions of dominant 7th chords, secondary dominants, modulation, non-tonal use of sixths, sonata and concerto form.

Level I: Sight singing and conducting using diatonic melodies in simple and compound time. Students study all major and minor keys, the intervals in those keys, chord progressions, rhythmic design and phrasing. Level II: Sight singing using skips in all diatonic triads, syncopation, harmonic cycles of thirds and fifths, dominant 7th and V7 chords, non-tonal use of seconds, fourths and fifths; binary and ternary form.