Summer Music Festival

A 30 minute session where participants will play many pieces from Suzuki Book 1 for Violin, Viola, or Cello. We will go through about 6 pieces per day, playing each piece twice based on the feedback of speed we get from participants, with a song list for each day posted ahead of time. We will also be taking requests at the end of the class.

A 30 minute session where participants will play many pieces from Suzuki Book 2 for Violin, Viola, or Cello, and Book 1 materials at a faster tempo. We will go through about 6 pieces per day--we will play Book 1 pieces at a faster tempo once, and we will be playing each Book 2 piece twice based on the feedback of speed we get from participants, with a song list for each day posted ahead of time. We will also be taking requests at the end of the class from Book 1 and Book 2. 

Come and join us to play or to listen! Each day, we will be playing 2 selections from Book 3 and one selection from Book 4, playing through at least twice at different tempo. We will revisit any requests from the selection played during the week on Friday. A playlist will be posted at least a week ahead of time. You can choose to attend everyday, or only on days of your own choosing.

Come and join us to play or to listen! During this session, we will be selecting one or two movements/pieces from the most popular intermediate/advanced solo selections for your instrument to explore at different tempos and engage in problem-solving for difficult passages. Participants may post individual questions regarding the pieces before each session begins to be addressed by the instructor during the class.

Learning to perform in front of audiences is one of the most challenging skills to develop for all musicians, and opportunities to do so in a safe space can be very limited. Community Sharing Time puts you in front of a small and supportive audience of teaching artists and fellow musicians from the festival so that you may perform any work of your choice and be cheered on in your performance without any expectations for criticism or feedback (unless you request it). A sign-up form for available time slots is available before the festival begins, and on the first day of classes.

Want to get an orchestra reading workout? This is a perfect opportunity to do it! We will go through one movement of a popular orchestral work each session. Materials will be posted at least a week ahead of time. You may choose to attend any number of sessions. This is open for all instruments, and the list of pieces, instrumentation, and parts will be available before the festival begins.

Become a better musician through yoga. By integrating yoga into your practice routine, you will develop a more focused mind for performance, and increased awareness of how to use your body to allow for proper posture and ease of movement. This class will present yoga from the musician’s perspective, focusing on the direct relationship between using yoga and making music. There will be two separate sessions offered - one geared for younger participants and one geared for older participants.

You will learn to:

• Practice breathing techniques and yoga postures to help improve musicianship
• Play using healthy posture and technique
• Get more out of your practice through improved focus
• Use your breath to play with deeper expression and ease performance anxiety
   

All participants are invited to record a part to contribute to our mashup video for the festival. The work for this performance will be selected and revealed several months before the festival begins, and differentiated level parts for violin, viola, and cello will be available on our website to download and practice, supported by practice videos and tracks created by our faculty. During the festival week, there will be several ensemble meeting blocks to rehearse the work, followed by 48 hours for all participants to record their work and submit it for the final video. A draft of the video will be presented at our Closing Ceremony, with the final video produced and released the following week. The mashup video is a lovely digital keepsake of the Summer Music Festival, and we encourage everyone to participate!

This is an opportunity for young strings players to explore fingerboard geography and hand frame placement! During the class, we will be interacting with finger pattern activities on our instruments to explore the fingerboard. We will also have optional interactive assignments on the concepts from the class to reinforce your knowledge. Students will receive teacher feedback for the assignments they complete, and every class will be differentiated to meet current student needs. We will learn to map out and achieve proficiency with popular exercises including basic scales, arpeggios, and fingering sequences.

We play a lot of music, but who wrote all of the music? We will be exploring different composers and their music during this session. This will be an interactive class where students will be able to answer questions through nonverbal communication to keep the students engaged. Recommended age for this session is incoming 3rd grade and below. 

We all know that both reading and listening to music every day is a crucial habit for all young students. We'll do both at Musical Story Time on Tuesday and Thursday! Each session will invite children to enjoy a story or a poem while using music to engage their imagination. They'll be exposed to a variety of musical terms, time signatures, and instruments, as well as get the chance to identify musical cues as we go along. Feel free to listen, dance, ask questions, or relax and enjoy the story. Recommended age for this session is incoming 3rd grade and below.

This is a great time to wind down and relax while listening to music! We will be taking requests for the students’ favorite music to listen to during this time. We will also set aside some guided time for the students to socialize in the class.  

Students will be learning basic sight-reading skills and note reading skills using the Essential Elements for Strings method book. Students must purchase a copy of Essential Elements Book 1, which is available in both physical and digital formats, in order to participate in this session. The recommended cohort for this session is incoming 2nd grade and above.

Have you ever gone through ten etudes in a week? Do you want to rapidly learn what specific skills each etude focuses on? We will be exploring two etudes each session, with the most popular materials for violin, viola, and cello. A full list of etudes and materials is available at least one month before the festival begins. You may drop in and join any sessions of your choice, and even challenge yourself to learn all ten in a week! You will also have an opportunity to post your questions before the start of the festival so that the instructor can address specific challenges during the sessions. 

These works by J.S. Bach are some of the most popular repertoire studied and performed by musicians all over the world. Explore a couple movements of the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin or the Six Suites for Solo Cello (Viola) with our teaching artists. They will cover some of the historical context and performance practices for each work, and help you develop efficient practice strategies for working on the individual movements, as well as a plan for learning a complete Sonata, Partita, or Suite.

Tackle popular orchestral excerpts with principal players from major symphony orchestras! We will be exploring excerpts widely used in university and professional orchestra auditions, including standards by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Strauss, and others. The excerpts will be posted before the start of the festival, and each participant will have an opportunity to post questions for the session leaders so that individual challenges may be addressed during the sessions.

Improvisation, or spontaneous creation of original music motives and melodies, is an essential part of many styles of music, especially Jazz. This workshop focuses on the fundamental skills for instrumental musicians to improvise their own music as well as collectively collaborate with other musicians in the creative process.

Music and technology have joined together in an interdisciplinary way such that the tools for making music are now much more accessible than they have been in the past. This five-part session presented daily during the festival covers a wide range of introductory software for music composition, scoring, and production. Running entirely on free open-source software, our instructors will show you how to quickly take advantage of even modest computing resources for music-making. All you need is a laptop or desktop computer that runs Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, or Linux. No previous experience is required, and software packages will be available for download before the festival begins.