Chamber music inspiring 30,000 people in Portland

Chamber Music Northwest is thrilled to introduce the launch of our Young Artists Institute in June, 2022. The Institute is the brainchild of Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, who have long wanted to create a unique music training program for young musicians who intend to pursue a career as a performing artist.

What separates the Young Artists Institute from the other excellent music camps in this country is that it offers young musicians the opportunity to explore their possible future as both a solo performing artist and as a member of a chamber ensemble. Students will receive private lessons, coaching and numerous performance opportunities both as soloists and as part of a string quartet.

How it Works:

Sixteen students, ages 14-18, who play violin, viola or cello, will participate in this intensive three-week training program. Housed at the University of Portland, they will spend the first week working closely on solo literature for their instrument with their mentor/instructor. The students will then be grouped into four string quartets, and will receive coaching on ensemble playing as they learn quartet literature and how to play together as a group.

The students being their training with the Institute one week prior to the opening of Chamber Music Northwest’s 2022 Summer Festival. In weeks two and three, students will continue their private lessons, ensemble coaching, and have many opportunities to observe and participate in the chamber music festival: they will attend rehearsals and concerts, play in “prelude” performances prior to the Festival concerts, work with our festival artists, who include some of the top music educators in the field, and have the opportunity to observe and really get a feel for what it is like to be an artist in a world-class chamber music festival.

In addition, the Young Artists will also be featured in multiple community performances, both as soloists and in quartets. They will perform in venues throughout the Portland metropolitan area, working with our education and community network, which includes hospitals, centers for homeless teens, assisted living centers, memory care facilities, community centers, schools, student music camps, and more. In addition, Chamber Music Northwest will utilize a new portable stage that is currently being built for our use to facilitate pop-up concerts. The stage, which is large enough to accommodate a piano, will be easy to tow and set up in virtually any location.

The Institute has engaged four outstanding faculty members from prestigious music institutions around the country:

• Jessica Lee, violin: Assistant Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and on faculty at the Cleveland Institute.
• Soovin Kim, violin: Artistic Director of Chamber Music Northwest and Lake Champlain Music Festival, former member of Johannes Quartet for 20 years; on faculty at New England Conservatory.
• Nicholas Cords, viola: Brooklyn Rider String Quartet, former Artistic Director of the Silk Road Ensemble, on faculty at New England Conservatory.
• Peter Stumpf, cello: Professor, University of Indiana and former Principal Cello of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Students will have the opportunity to get to know and perform before the Institute faculty as well as other Festival musicians—a priceless opportunity to make contacts at institutions where they may be applying in the future.

The 16 students, selected by Artistic Directors Soovin Kim and Gloria Chien, will all receive full scholarships, paying only their transportation costs to and from Portland. We anticipate that approximately 50% will come from the Pacific Northwest region; the rest from around the country.

The cost of the Young Artists Institute is $130,000 per year. Chamber Music Northwest is currently raising funds to underwrite scholarships ($8,000 per student) and is creating an endowment fund as a permanent source of funding for this ongoing program. We invite donations of any size to support the Young Artists Institute or other Chamber Music Northwest Education and Community Engagement programs.

Links:

• CMNW Education & Community Engagement Programs