When founding Purchase College in 1967, then New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and the State University of New York envisioned a public liberal arts and sciences college within which professional training in the performing and visual arts could flourish. Today, that vision is realized in the four arts conservatories that make up the School of the Arts at Purchase.
The School of the Arts encourages interdisciplinary collaboration among students and faculty in dance, art and design, music, theatre arts and film. It draws upon established excellence in the four conservatory programs, recognizing that tomorrow’s artist will reach across traditional boundaries and work in a variety of media using tools, practices and approaches drawn from a variety of art forms.
The newly established School of the Arts Advisory Council--consisting of School alumni, luminaries in the visual and performing arts, philanthropists, and advocates for the arts, as well as the deans of the arts conservatories, the directors of the Performing Arts Center and the Neuberger Museum, and the President of the College--works to increase awareness of the School of the Arts regionally, nationally and internationally and advises the President of Purchase College and the School of the Arts deans.
Purchase College School of the Arts Council
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Dori Berinstein
Billy Collins
Carmen DeLavallade
Emily and Eugene Grant
Titia Hulst
Bill T. Jones
Jon Kessler
MaryAnn Liebert
Jodi Long
Santo Loquasto
Ken Marsolais
Elizabeth McCormack
Meredith Monk
James Moody
Jim Neuberger
Helen Stambler Neuberger
Martin Oppenheimer
Rochelle Rosenberg
Regina Spektor
Stanley Tucci
Joseph Volpe
Steven Weber
Chris Wedge
Fred Wilson
&
Thomas J. Schwarz (President, Purchase College)
Thom Collins (Director, Neuberger Museum of Art)
Laura Kaminsky (Dean, Conservatory of Music)
Denise Mullen (Dean, School of Art+Design)
Carol Shiffman (Dean, Conservatory of Dance)
Greg Taylor (Interim Dean, Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film)
(August 2007)
The Conservatories
Dance
The world-class faculty of the Conservatory of Dance prepares its 150 students for careers in dance through study in the master-apprentice tradition and numerous performance opportunities. A Purchase BFA emphasizes performance and choreography, with classes in music for dance, dance history, production, improvisation, anatomy for dance, and other related arts providing the foundation for each student to build an individual artistic vision of professional caliber.
For the past four years, the renowned Purchase College Dance Corps has been the sole U.S. representative to the International Festival of Dance Academies, and it has been one of a few select dance conservatories to appear at the Kennedy Center. The Dance Corps’ Spring Concert this year included Bronislava Nijinska’s rarely performed “Les Noces”, reviewed very favorably in The New York Times. In 2007, Conservatory dancers will be performing with the Orchestra of St. Lukes at LaGuardia High School, the Americas Society, and the Queens Museum of Art.
Purchase alumni found and direct their own companies, teach as guest artists, and choreograph performances around the world. Noted alumni include Rachel Berman (dancer, Paul Taylor Dance Company), Terese Capucilli (dancer, Buglisi/Foreman Dance and co-artistic director, Martha Graham Dance Company), Alan Barnes (dancer, Frankfurt Ballet), and Doug Varone (founder and director, Doug Varone and Dancers).
The Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film provides 240 highly motivated and talented students with the professional training and cultural background for successful careers in theater, film, and related media. It offers four separate and highly selective BFA programs (acting, design technology, dramatic writing and film) and an MFA degree in design/technology. Alumni include Edie Falco, Parker Posey, Wesley Snipes and Stanley Tucci in Acting; Brian MacDevitt and David Gallo in Design/Technology; and Hal Hartley and Chris Wedge in Film.
Each year, the Purchase Repertory Theatre presents seven productions that explore a broad range of styles, periods, and playwrights. Each is designed and produced exclusively by students.
In addition each year, The Purchase Repertory Theatre and students in Dramatic Writing program, who are trained in play and screen writing, perform in the Signature Theatre in NYC. Also, a Purchase arts festival is currently planned for New York’s Symphony Space.
With an enrollment of 400 students, the College’s Conservatory of Music offers a comprehensive education leading to the Bachelor of Music, Performers Certificate, Master of Music, or Artist Diploma. Students take private or small-group study; work in ensembles; master a core set of courses in music theory, history, and musicianship; and perform in junior and senior recitals. They perform music from all eras and traditions — early, classical, contemporary, jazz — and perform in the orchestra and in ensembles of all sizes.
We are proud to say that the Purchase Opera has now won the prestigious National Opera Association’s award for the best college production two years in a row, and Professor Jacque Trussel, head of Voice, has been recognized by Classical Singer as 2005’s Director of the Year.
Purchase College alumni currently are performing with the Metropolitan Opera, London Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theatre, New York Philharmonic, and on Broadway.
Art+Design 
The Purchase College School of Art+Design offers preeminent programs of study in Graphic Design, Painting/Drawing, Photography, Printmaking/Art of the Book, Sculpture/3-D Media and Interdisciplinary Work.
Our graduates have launched careers in galleries and museums, national publications, electronic visualizations, master print edition studios, art direction, computer typography, photography, graphic and corporate design, education, and graduate study and research, and as independent, exhibiting studio artists. They exhibit at prestigious venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Albright Knox Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Chashama Gallery and other galleries in Chelsea.
They have received major awards, grants, and fellowships; among them are the Fulbright, Guggenheim, MacArthur, National Endowment for the Arts, Sharpe Foundation, Edward Albee Foundation, Pollock-Krassner, Prix de Rome, and Siskind Fellowships.