Hello,
My name is Arthur Lin. I am completing a Bachelor of Music Performance Degree at California State University Fullerton. This summer, I had the opportunity to attend the Brevard Music Center Institute and Summer Festival as a percussionist. Brevard is a 7-week advanced orchestral training program, located in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. The program brought together many of the world’s finest professional orchestral musicians, including renowned percussion faculty Charles Ross and Gwendowlyn Dease. Besides the faculty, we participated in seminars and masterclasses hosted by musicians from around the world. Over the course of the summer, Brevard held nearly 80 concerts and events, many of these featuring world-class gues soloists and ensembles. It was profoundly inspiring to be encompassed by such a wealth of talent and experience.
Here are some details about the program:
Every year, 230 students are accepted through a competitive audition process. We were required to send in audition tapes demonstrating our skills on our respective instruments. Recommendation letters and writing were required on top of these performance requirements. Upon arrival further auditions were made for placement. The 230 student body was divided into two groups. These are the high school division and the collegiate/post-collegiate division. In addition, the student body is divided into their respective instrument studios. These studios represent the instruments found in a major orchestra or performing ensemble, such as the violin, viola, cello, bass, flute/piccolo, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, percussion. There were also studios for saxophone, solo piano, collaborative piano, and composition. The percussion studio, which was what I got into, consisted of 13 members. 6 in high school and 7 in the collegiate. Each studio was represented by one, two or three faculty/artists, and each instrument was assigned a location and set of rooms across the Brevard Campus.
Regarding the orchestral performances, there were 3 orchestras on the campus. The first is the Brevard Music Center Orchestra(BMCO), which is the flagship orchestra of the program. This orchestra is comprised of the faculty members working side by side with the collegiate students. The second orchestra is the Brevard Sinfonia. which is an all collegiate student orchestra. The third orchestra is the Brevard Concert Orchestra, which is comprised entirely of the students within the high school division. For the duration of the festival, I got to perform with the BMCO and the Sinfonia. Every single week, we got to work with a different world-class conductor, hailing from every part of the world.
I was fortunate to attend the Brevard Music Center Institute and Summer Festival this past summer. One of the things that helped me finance this trip was the Dean’s Opportunity Fund, organized by the College of the Arts. This scholarship allows students to pursue projects and activities by financing the costs of attendance. To give back to the community and the College of the Arts, I would like to further record my experiences at this festival. I have much more I would like to describe about this wonderful program. To further document this, I will be posting 7 more installments in addition to this post, one for every week of this program. Included in each post will be pictures and highlights of each week. I hope you look forward to these posts.
Thank you for reading,
Arthur
arthurbrevard2015 