Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory

In 2005, Russell Schmidt joined the RMSC faculty, teaching an interdisciplinary course on the basics of jazz improvisation. (During the academic year, Schmidt teaches at Bowling Green State University, where he is Director of Jazz Activities and Associate Professor of Music Performance Studies.) Based on the success of last summer's interdisciplinary jazz class, RMSC will expand this curriculum in 2006, during Session B, with a new jazz string quartet offering.

The Jazz String Quartet Program is designed to provide students the opportunity to explore chamber music that swings! Two string quartets will have the opportunity to rehearse and perform great, new arrangements of jazz classics and popular standards. Students in the program will receive coachings from Schmidt, who has worked with jazz string quartets in the past. He elaborates:

"A few years back, we had jazz violinist Regina Carter in as a guest artist at Bowling Green State University. I arranged music for a BGSU student string quartet that was interested in performing jazz for her at a masterclass she offered. That experience was a big success for all involved–even Regina and her band were knocked out by the students' performances–and I've been working with, and writing for, jazz string quartets since. It's a pretty rare thing, really, and it's always a lot of fun for performers and audience members alike."

In addition to working together in quartet format, students in the program will participate in jazz history, improvisation, and theory classes, plus a jazz methods survey on topics such as "comping" and walking bass lines. Additionally, jazz string quartet students will partake in various classical music offerings, including private lessons, studio performance classes, and chamber music or string orchestra performance. Eurhythmics class and an interdisciplinary elective are also part of this curriculum's design.

Those who want to continue their music studies at RMSC in a more traditional manner, but who might be interested in that interdisciplinary jazz course should fear not, according to Schmidt: "Even with the new Jazz String Quartet Program, we will still be offering the 'Intro to Jazz Improvisation' interdisciplinary elective in 2006."

NEW Interdisciplinary Class: Orchestra Repertoire for Cello
by Catherine Lehr

As professional musicians we must be familiar with the vast and varied repertoire for our instruments, and this includes the great orchestral works. For those of us in the professional orchestra world, knowledge of this repertoire is essential to winning an audition. Then, as we settle into orchestra life, mastery of our individual parts is basic to providing the inspiring concerts that audiences expect and that we musicians live for. The faculty at Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory includes several professional orchestra musicians. This summer Catherine Lehr, assistant principal cello of the St. Louis Symphony, will offer an interdisciplinary class devoted to the study of cello orchestral excerpts. The three-times-a-week class will address standard audition repertoire as well as orchestral works that individual students may be in the process of preparing.