MS 375 - Music Performance Workshop

The workshop is designed to offer instrumentalists and vocalists the opportunity to develop a distinctive musical personality and to equip them to deal effectively with a wide range of professional demands, as well as to increase and consolidate their performance skills and knowledge and expand repertoire. The aims of the workshop are:

• To stimulate habits of self-awareness, self-criticism, and decision making
• To encourage students to develop repertoire interests
• To give students the opportunity to reflect on their practice as musicians by engaging in analytical inquiry related to their artistic aims
• To help students become aware of current trends in performance research and style and how these connect to their own interests
• To improve students’ accuracy in reading music and in analyzing the structure and harmony of the music score
• To enable students to determine the most expressive solutions to realize their interpretive visions

Sessions are highly practical, and performance plays a key role in the educational project of the course. Collaboration is key. The study of chamber music is a laboratory for collaboration; playing with others intensifies skills in listening and attention and requires putting aside individuality to realize a collective interpretation of a score.

The instructor will choose which pieces to cover in class based on semester enrollment in the course, as determined by the Music Workshop Applications and subsequent discussion with participants. The program is flexible and may vary according to the individual need and level of each student. Preparation between sessions is an integral factor in assuring the steady progress of all participants.

Sample list of items to cover through the learning process:

• Determination of repertoire
• Criteria for a successful performance
• Sight-reading notions
• Score-reading notions
• Issues connected to shaping a coherent concert-program
• Monitoring self-preparation