(This blog is dedicated to my son-in-law, an amazing piano player.)
We've been attending the Colorado College of Music Festival. It runs the 30 days of each June, and there's generally some kind of performance every day. A substantial number of the performances are free.
This is how it's set up. The Director of the Music College at Colorado College, Dr. Susan Grace, and her minions (just kidding) comb through about 400 audition tapes from the best amateur musicians in the country. These people are not pimply faced teens larking about at 'music camp'. These are serious musicians who attend the top music colleges and universities from all over the country. What Ms. Grace does in conjunction with colleagues such as the Conductor of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic is pick the people she hopes are the 52 best musicians from the audition tapes. She in essence builds an orchestra.
However, that's just the first part. Next, she invites top professional musicians to give intensive classes to which of the 52 students play their instrument. We are talking principals in major symphony orchestras all over the country, as well as concert artists such a Jon Nakamatsu, a Cliburn Gold Medalist. I could bore everyone (except my son-in-law) with name after name and accomplishment after accomplishment. The resumes of all the Festival Artists (pros) is a dense, long paragraph in six point type for each one of them.
Finally, Dr. Grace arranges for these amazing musicians to play a long list of concerts. These include seven mini-concerts at mid-day (free), three hour long free concerts before a Festival Artists ticketed concert, a full orchestra children's concert. a donor's concert, and finally an entire symphony evening with a full orchestra of both the Festival Artists (pros) and Festival Fellows (amateurs).
The people of Colorado Springs love Dr. Grace. All she has to do is step on stage and there's wild spontaneous applause. She keeps the ticket prices down ($30) for the ticketed events, and the movers and shakers of the Springs make up cost difference. Before each concert she named some person who had underwritten what we were going to see that evening.
If that wasn't enough, she arranges for sponsors for each of the 52 chosen. The sponsors underwrite the room, board, reeds, music and anything else the students will need in this month long intensive learning process. AND, she also performs during the festival!
How do I know all this? Well, standing in the courtyard outside of the performance hall between the free concert and the ticketed one, I walked up to a group of "Fellows" (amateurs), and interviewed them. That was a novel experience for most of them. Press coverage! (Even if it is just my blog.) It helped to break the ice that I had seen all of them perform in various concert we attended.
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| Notice how they are each listed under their instrument as well as a nascent string quartet |
Three of them were extremely personable, and had already learned being people others want to be around is a skill which will take you far in the orchestra world.
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| He's already into orchestras - sub at North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, and second French Horn in the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra |
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| Master's Degree- Michigan State University - he likes to commission new music and play it. He played the percussion in a free jazz concert with two Festival Artists. |
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| Master's Degree from the Manhattan School of Music. This guy attended every concert we did - 6 in all |
It turns out these people are competitive, but they're not. They compete with themselves to be the best french horn player, percussionist or trombone player. They all definitely see their lives as full time professional musicians, but in our artistically dumbass country, (my words) they shared how hard it is to make a decent living playing serious music even when you've trained for years. (The earliest guys started playing was in the 5th grade, and one other in the 8th grade.)
They shared there's not a lot of turnover in symphony orchestras. When a slot opens up in a medium sized city, it's an open audition behind a screen. When slots open up a major city (like NYC), then it's audition by invitation only but still behind a screen. The Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic makes 6 figures a year, but he's an exception. The third violist player doesn't make nearly that salary. Catching onto a symphony orchestra is the goal of each of these pictured guys, but some of them are doing arrangements, commissioning 'new' music, and participating in small units (like a chamber group).
Being one of the '52' is a huge deal. A couple had sent in their audition tapes in previous years and been rejected. Acceptance means they get to rub shoulders and network with an entire range of professional musicians. And, there's always more to learn. My take on this whole thing is the Festival Fellows are in Triple AAA trying to move up to the majors. They all agreed that was a good analogy. They're right on the cusp of the professional world, but only a few will actually make it.
We've been able to immerse ourselves in this strange world. Complimenting the professionals on their performances still makes their faces light up. Even the pros have to scramble in the summer to make a living. Like teachers, most of them don't make a salary that stretches over the dormant symphony summer.
We were really excited by this Festival. Without a doubt it was the best one we've ever seen because it's so intimate. The performance hall (which is almost brand new) seats about 300 people in super comfortable seats with plenty of leg room. No matter where you sit, you can actually see these people play their instruments. If you're ever here in the 'Springs' in June, drop by, there's probably an amazing concert happening.
(FYI - sorry about the qualities of the pictures, but I had to leave the last concert early because it turns out I arrived home from Oklahoma with the flu. I've been running a significant temperature with chills, sweats, and body aches for the past two days. Damn that sickness tube {airplane}, but my flu shot is holding down the symptoms.)
