Photo by Dana Duke

The WCM Artist Coaching Project

The WCM Artist Coaching Project’s performing artists collaborate each year with school music teachers, providing intensive student coaching  for their bands, orchestras, chamber music ensembles and in private lessons.  WCM artists work in conjunction with teachers to establish sessions according the the needs of their students, and flexible residencies are set up according to the needs of each music department. WCM artists can travel to the schools for one–day sessions over the course of a school year, for example, or they can come as needed for shorter terms. The Project has included intense coaching with school chamber music groups; individual lessons to supplement private school lessons on their instruments, and assisting directors by playing side–by–side with students in various ensembles.

Since the 2006–07 school year, WCM’s work with public school students has grown to encompass cross–curriculum Arts in Education projects. Funding for this important work has come from Arts Partners Challenge Grants, a New York State Council on the Arts Local Capacity Building Initiative of its Arts in Education Program, administered through ArtsWestchester.

If you would like to explore how to bring our professional musicians and coaching programs to your school, E-mail WCM’s Artistic Director, Judith Pearce.

Arts in Education Project 2009 - 2010

The 2009 - 2010 school year chamber music coaching work is in its 15th year at Monticello High School. WCM artists, harpsichordist Kenneth Hamrick, flutist Judith Pearce and oboist Matt Sullivan are working with the students and teachers this year. WCM’s participation in the school’s Arts in Education work is in it’s fourth year. 

MHS’s “Restoration Music Project” began in September with a trip to the Mid-Hudson Bridge, spanning the Hudson River between Poughkeepsie and Highland, NY. The 3,000–foot suspension bridge was built in 1930 and carries three lanes and a pedestrian/bicycle walkway. Students learned the story of the bridge’s restoration, and while there, listened to the on–site recording of composer Joseph Bertolozzi’s “Bridge Music.”

For the rest of the year, students are working to actually restore something themselves – the historic St. John Street Auditorium in the school building, now housing Sullivan County BOCES at 22 Saint John St. in Monticello. While they clean and polish, repair and renovate, the music students identify and analyze the auditorium’s acoustic properties, and sample different sounds they make as a result of the restoration process.

In addition, facts, personal stories and a performance list all about the history of the St. John Street Theatre are being collected, and students are learning about its architecture in the context of the building’s historic period.

Finally, their hard work, research, music, and the restored theater, will all be unveiled at a program there in June. The school district plans to use the Theatre for some of its school concerts. MHS teachers Ann Trombley and Nancy Wegrzyn lead the project, and are assisted by composer Andrew Waggoner and clarinetist Allen Blustine.

STUDENT INTERNS TRAIN AT SUMMER FESTIVAL

Each year, several Monticello High School chamber music students are chosen to be WCM Summer Festival Interns, and are given the opportunity to work more intensely with WCM’s professional musicians in July. Students are selected for the internships based on their progress and commitment to  their ensemble work during the school year. The public is invited to observe a coaching demonstration and hear a short student performance during a Summer Festivals event, “At Work & Play Behind the Notes.” Students also work as Festival volunteers, learning how a major public event is run by assisting in festival operations, such as box office and front of house duties, parking and stage crew support.

As Festival Interns, the teens receive individual and ensemble coaching from July 12 to 24 at the Eddie Adams Farm in Jeffersonville. They attend with full scholarships (valued at $900 each) for the intensive training by artists with world-class performing and teaching careers. A demonstration coaching workshop and student performance will be at 7 pm July 22 during the “At Work & Play Behind the Notes” free, open rehearsal event. Scholarship winners will also be announced that night at the Adams Farm.