Study Music Abroad: 6 European Programs to Expand Your Musical Horizons
Want to travel Europe and finally get serious about music? You can do both at once - and the continent that produced Mozart, Bach, and Dvořák is still the best classroom on Earth for it.
Studying music abroad is one of the few travel formats that actually changes you. A summer or semester program gives you structure (daily lessons, ensembles, performances), a built-in community of fellow musicians, and a legitimate reason to live in a European city rather than sprint through it. You come home with technique you didn't have - and a relationship with a place that no two-day city break can match.
Here are six programs and program cities that will challenge your spirit of adventure and expand your musical horizons, plus the practical stuff - auditions, costs, and how to pick.
1) IES Abroad - Vienna, Austria
Vienna is the obvious first choice for classical study, and it earns it. This is the city of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mahler; the Musikverein and Staatsoper are working venues, not museums, and standing-room opera tickets still cost less than a cinema seat.
IES Abroad, one of the longest-running study abroad organizations in the US, runs a dedicated music program in Vienna: private lessons with professional musicians, chamber ensembles, music history taught in the city where it happened, and regular access to world-class performances. Expect to audition, and expect German-language coursework options alongside the music.
2) American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) - Graz, Austria
Graz is Austria's second city and its best-kept secret - a UNESCO-listed old town, a huge student population, and none of Vienna's tourist crush. For singers, it hosts one of the most respected summer programs in Europe.
The American Institute of Musical Studies has run its summer vocal institute in Graz since 1970. It's aimed squarely at serious opera and lieder singers: intensive coaching, German diction, orchestra-accompanied performance opportunities, and faculty drawn from working opera professionals. Admission is by audition (recorded or live), and spots are competitive.
3) University summer strings programs - northern Italy
Italy runs on music the way it runs on food, and its small northern cities - Alessandria, Cremona, and their neighbors between Turin and Milan - are ideal study settings: Old World charm, Alpine views on clear days, and easy weekend trains to the big cities.
Several American universities, including the University of Georgia's Hugh Hodgson School of Music, have run intensive summer string programs in this region - violin, viola, cello, and double bass, taught masterclass-style. Cremona, the town where Stradivari built his violins, also hosts luthiery and strings courses year-round. If strings are your instrument, this is the pilgrimage.
4) Summer music programs in Germany - Freiberg and beyond
Germany has more full-time orchestras than any other country on Earth, and its smaller cities are stuffed with musical history. Freiberg, a 12th-century mining town in Saxony, is famous among organists for its perfectly preserved Silbermann organs - instruments Bach himself championed.
US universities such as James Madison University have long used Saxony as a summer base for piano and opera-tradition vocal study, and German conservatories in Leipzig, Dresden, and Weimar run international summer academies open to visiting students. Most expect prior experience and a live or recorded audition; many are startlingly affordable by US standards.
5) Cambridge Early Music - Cambridge, UK
If your tastes run earlier - Baroque, Renaissance, Medieval - Cambridge is the destination. The University's choral tradition is 500 years old, evensong at King's College is free to attend, and the city has been a center of early music scholarship for generations.
Cambridge Early Music runs summer schools devoted to historically informed performance: Baroque ensembles, Renaissance polyphony, lute, viol, harp, and early vocal technique, taught by leading specialists. It's rigorous and gloriously nerdy - not for the casual dabbler, perfect for the obsessive.
6) NYU Steinhardt - Prague, Czech Republic
Prague is the wildcard on this list: a city that's hip and cosmopolitan on the surface but married to its musical past - Dvořák, Smetana, Janáček, and a concert calendar that rivals cities twice its size, at Czech prices.
NYU Steinhardt has run study abroad music programs at NYU Prague for decades, spanning music history and theory, piano, composition, and vocal training across musical theatre, opera, and jazz. It's the most flexible option here if you want a full university semester abroad rather than a summer intensive.
How to actually make this happen
- Audition early. Nearly every serious program requires one - usually a recorded video these days. Deadlines for summer sessions often fall between December and March.
- Budget realistically. Summer intensives typically run a few thousand dollars including housing; a full university semester costs regular study abroad tuition. European conservatory summer academies are often the cheapest route.
- Check credit transfer. If you're a current student, confirm your home institution accepts the program's credits before you pay a deposit.
- Stay after the course. You'll be in Europe with a rail network at your feet. Vienna to Prague is four hours by train; Graz to Italy's lakes is a morning. Build in wander time.
Program details, dates, and fees change year to year, so treat the links above as starting points and verify current offerings on each organization's site before applying.
Have you spent a summer or semester studying music abroad? Which program - and would you do it again? Share your experience.