Saturday, August 3, 2013

Orfeo Music Festival 2012

Last summer I participated in the Orfeo Music Festival in Vipiteno, Italy. I had to write a summary of my experience to a scholarship donor, and so was forced into finally writing a blog-type piece on it, and figured since the work was done I may as well share it here! So, with a few tweaks to make it more suitable for my own personal blog, here is my experience in Italy this summer!


My experience participating in the Orfeo Music Festival this summer was phenomenal. I had the opportunity to focus intently on music for over two weeks, fully immersed with my peers in a daily routine of attending each other’s workshops and concerts, eating meals together, and attending the nightly faculty recitals, all the while in the beautiful setting of the small village of Vipiteno in the Italian Alps. This environment of constant immersion in music nearly 24 hours a day was an essential aspect of the experience.

View of the school courtyard from the recital hall. All lessons, performances, and practice rooms were located in this school.

View of the school from the front gate (recital hall on the right)

 View of two castles visible from a practice room.

I had six performance opportunities during the course of the festival, each of which provided me with a very different learning experience. On the very first day of the festival I had my first two performances – a master class and an afternoon recital. For both of these I performed a piece from Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestuck Op. 12 titled “Aufschwung.” The master class was one of the most rewarding experiences of the festival – after getting an initial chance to play the piece in front of an audience of mostly fellow pianists (and work out a few nerves in the process), I then had a public half-hour lesson on the piece with Natsuki Fukasawa, professor of piano at California State University, Sacramento. Working with her gave me many new insights and added a new layer of depth to explore in the piece.


Immediately after the master class was the afternoon student concert, when I had my “official” performance of the piece. It went extremely well, and performing on the first day was a good way to dive headfirst into the festival.


Performing in the recital hall.

My next performance, at the end of the first week, was of the first movement of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Sonata No. 23, Hob. XVI. 


Throughout the first week, in addition to the many lessons I was able to have with my instructor Nina Scolnik, I also had many coaching sessions with a violinist and a cellist in preparation of our performance of Clara Schumann’s Trio in G Minor, 2nd movement. This performance was special because we had the opportunity to give the performance in one of the beautiful medieval churches in Vipiteno – performing in such a venue was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience to give a concert in a setting that simply does not exist in America.

Recital Performance of Clara Schumann Trio – video (7:01)

Performing with my trio in the gothic Holy Spirit church.
 
L-R: Nina Scolnik (my private instructor and chamber coach, both at Orfeo and home at UC Irvine), Michelle Bessemer (violin), Luis Zepeda (cello), and myself (piano).

My trio with two other great friends and pianist participants at the festival, David and Quentin.

This year, the festival put together a choir with many of the festival participants, instrumentalists in addition to the vocal students. I was able to participate in this as well, and gained valuable experience learning how to be a member of a choir; because singing requires such a different skill set than playing the piano, it truly helps pianists and other instrumentalists to sharpen their musicianship skills and listen in a new way. In addition, my ultimate career goal is to work with singers as an accompanist and coach, and any experience I can gather singing will help me be successful in that field. Our performance was in another of the beautiful churches in Vipiteno.


Performing with the Orfeo Festival Choir.

I also had a chance to get first-hand experience of what working with singers – particularly, student singers – will be like. I was paired with a soprano for one song, and through working with her in her lessons as well as accompanying her performance I gained valuable insight on how to handle difficult situations that may arise when working with new or inexperienced musicians. Though the performance was rough for her, it taught me how to handle myself and do my best to support the singer no matter what goes wrong on stage and help her find her place in the music. In many ways, I believe this was a better experience then merely having an easy performance.

Accompanying a very young singer in one of her first-ever public performances.

As mentioned before, the location of the festival was incredible. The town of Vipiteno, Italy is located in the far north of the Italian Alps – so far north, in fact, that the primary language spoken in the town is German, and the closest large city is not in Italy but Innsbruck in Austria. As a small town, there was little distraction from the constant immersion of the festival, and the beauty of the old city and the surrounding mountain landscapes made for a very inspirational location. Though every week day we were kept extremely busy with our lessons, master classes, performances, and faculty recitals, the weekends were left open for us to practice and explore, both of which I took full advantage of. I have included a few pictures of the town, as well as the mountains surrounding it (one of which I climbed to the summit!).

 
The main street of the old city of Vipiteno/Sterzing.

  
Car show driving through Vipiteno.

  
 Dancers at a street festival one evening in Vipiteno.

  
Double rainbow after a hard rain.

  
Beautiful waterfall on a nearby hike.

  
View across the valley while climbing Rosskopf mountain.

  
Climbing Rosskopf mountain.

 
Climbing Rosskopf mountain.

  
My roommate playing Mahler on top of an Alp.

  
Me clinging to the cross at the top of Rosskopf mountain for dear life - super windy with an impending hailstorm!

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