Messiah College: Music Department

Chamber Music in Grantham:
Performance and Composition
Intensive Chamber Music Program and
Composition Workshop

Messiah College, Grantham, PA
August 6 - 13, 2010

This one-week, intensive program is designed to enhance participants’ ability to effectively communicate musical ideas in performance.

This year the camp will expand to begin on Friday afternoon, August 6, and run through the final concert on Friday, August 13.

Qualified participants may receive graduate credit. For more information, please visit www.messiah.edu/gradprograms or call the Dean's office at 717-796-5045.

Featuring artist faculty: the Mendelssohn Piano Trio; composer, and dean of Messiah College School of the Arts Richard Roberson; along with guest artists Ann Schein and Earl Carlyss.

“Mendelssohn Piano Trio members are three of the most stellar young artists of our time. Their inspiration in launching this festival will be of the highest artistic stature for now and into the future.”
- Ann Schein and Earl Carlyss

Participation Information

Participation Requirements:

Participants are a select group of professionally-oriented, advanced students of violin, viola,cello, piano, and composition, 16 years of age and older. Exceptions will be made for gifted younger applicants.

Activities:

Participants will be grouped into string trios, string quartets, piano trios, piano quartets, or piano quintets.Each participant will be assigned to a group, and music will be selected for each group prior to the beginning of the program. Each chamber group will have group rehearsals, coaching by all members of the faculty, performances in the masterclasses, and a public performance in Poorman Recital Hall at the closing of the camp. Various seminars of music/chamber music-related topics will be held each day. There will be a performance and masterclass by guest artist Ronald Leonard.

In addition to attending guest artist performances and master-classes, participants for the Composition Workshop will write music and participate in group critique, study selected chamber works, and supervise readings and rehearsals of their works. New this year, composers will have an opportunity to work with an ensemble while writing for the ensemble. At least one composition will be selected for public performance by the Mendelssohn Piano Trio.

Messiah Colleges scenic main campus, located on 400 beautiful rolling acres in the suburban town of Grantham, in south central Pennsylvania, features Climenhaga Fine Arts Center, which has the 400-seat Miller Auditorium, the 150-seat Poorman Recital Hall, a large instrumental rehearsal hall, and ample practice room space for musical studies and performances.

Application

For Instrumentalists:

Please submit a letter of application, which should include the following information: name, address, phone number, e-mail address, date of birth, parent(s) or guardian name and phone number, gender, instrument, number of years studied, and a brief description of your prior chamber music experience. Please include a letter of recommendation from your current teacher with his or her contact information, a tape or compact disc of two contrasting styles of music of your choice, along with your non-refundable $50 application fee, which is applied toward tuition. Please make checks payable to: Messiah College/Chamber Music in Grantham.

For Composers:

Please submit a letter of application, letter of recommendation from your current teacher, and a score of a substantial (more than five minutes) composition for piano trio. Works submitted should not have received a public performance. All accepted compositions will receive a reading during the camp, and at least one will be selected for performance by the Mendelssohn Piano Trio at the final concert.

Application deadline: June 1, 2009. Notification of acceptance will be made by June 15. Applications received after the deadline will be considered if space is available. After being notified of acceptance, the tuition is due by June 30, 2009.

For more information please write, call, or e-mail:

Chamber Music in Grantham: Performance and Composition
Peter Sirotin
9400 Sunnyfield Ct.
Potomac, MD 20854
(301) 299-6526, fax (301) 299-6028
cell (301) 806-2250
peter@mendelssohnpianotrio.com or psirotin@messiah.edu

Tuition, Room and Board:

Double-occupancy dorm — $690
Double-occupancy apartment — $730
Single-occupancy dorm — $770
Tuition and meals only — $520
Tuition and housing only — $520
Tuition only — $350

Friday, Aug. 6, 3:00 p.m.: Faculty Recital
Wednesday, Aug. 11, 8:00 p.m.: Earl Carlyss, violin, and Ann Schein, piano
Friday, Aug. 13, 3:00 p.m.: Student Recital

Artistic Advisory Board

Ann Schein, pianist, distinguished teacher’s chair at the Aspen Music School
Earl Carlyss, violinist, former member of the Julliard String Quartet
Ronald Leonard, cellist, Gregor Piatigorsky professor of cello at the USC Thornton School of Music.
Victor Danchenko, violinist, faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and Peabody Conservatory
Jerome Barry, baritone and artistic director of the Washington, D.C., Embassy Series
Richard Roberson, pianist and composer, dean of School of the Arts at Messiah College

Faculty

“…One of the more recent stars adding radiance to today’s constellation of chamber music ensembles…”
Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post. December 11, 2002

In 1997, a group of talented musicians formed a chamber music ensemble under the tutelage of renowned artists Earl Carlyss and Ann Schein. They named the group after the Nineteenth Century composer whose versatility they greatly admired, and the Mendelssohn Piano Trio was born. Since then, the trio has developed a loyal audience, performing with that rare combination of powerful individual talent and tight-knit collaboration that is the hallmark of a truly exceptional chamber music ensemble. The Mendelssohn Piano Trio's extensive repertoire embraces works from all periods of the genre's history. Ensemble members are superb soloists in their own right, having enjoyed diversified musical careers that transcend international boundaries and range from solo appearances with various orchestras to chamber music collaborations with such artists as Earl Carlyss, Ann Schein, Ronald Leonard, Igor Zhukov, Natalia Gutman, as well as many other musicians of the international stature.
Currently Ensemble-in-Residence for Washington DC's Embassy Series, Messiah College as well as “Chamber Music in Grantham” summer festival, the Mendelssohn Piano Trio is one of the most exciting ensembles on the national and international music scene. Pianist, Ya-Ting Chang is from Taiwan; violinist, Peter Sirotin is from Russia; and cellist, Fiona Thompson is from England. The ensemble has performed and given master classes in a variety of venues nationwide and abroad, including universities, colleges, art academies, and music festivals, as well as an international radio feature of Voice of America. The performance highlights of the Trio’s upcoming 10th season are: National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, National Gallery of the Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Embassy Concert Series, Black Rock Center of the Arts, and many others. Their fourth & fifth CDs will be released under the Centaur label with music of J. Suk, B. Smetana, and F. Mendelssohn. The Washington Post has described the group’s Brahms cycle of piano trios and piano quartets presented by the Embassy Series as “unfathomably beautiful”, “transcendent” and “electrifying”. In 2002 the group has presented a cycle of complete Beethoven piano trios in Portugal and Washington DC to critical acclaim. Both the American Record Guide and Fanfare Magazine have praised the trio’s recordings released on Centaur Records. Numerous classical music stations in the United States have also featured these recordings. The trio’s recent performance at the National Gallery of Arts was broadcasted on NPR’s “Performance Today” program. For more information please visit www.mendelssohnpianotrio.com.

Pianist and composer Richard Roberson serves as dean of the School of the Arts at Messiah College, where he oversees the Departments of Music, Theatre, and the Visual Arts. As a pianist, recent performances include an all-Mozart recital given at St. Lawrence Chapel in Harrisburg, and in Katerini, Greece, as well as a joint performance with Damian and Tara Savarino in Ravanusa, Sicily. Also a composer, recent works include the song cycle Triptych, Suite for Clarinet, Fanfare for an Uncommon President for brass, and the choral And the Word, which has received two recent performances at the National Cathedral. Dr. Roberson is a native of Dallas, Texas, and a graduate of the schools of music of Indiana University and the University of North Texas, where his principal teachers were Hans Graf, Walter Robert, Larry Walz, and Bernhard Heiden.

Guest Artists Ann Schein and Earl Carlyss

The “Washington Post” writes of pianist Schein, “Thank heaven for Ann Schein…what a relief it is to hear a pianist who, with no muss or fuss, simply reaches right into the heart of whatever she is playing—and creates music so powerful you cannot tear yourself away.” Schein, who has performed with renowned conductors including George Szell, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, James dePreist, David Zinman, Stanislaw Skrowacewski, and Sir Colin Davis, has been an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1984. In 2006 she was chosen to hold the Victoria and Ronald Simms Chair, awarded to a member of the Aspen piano faculty for two years. Her award was extended in special recognition of her teaching prominence.