For my STEP project, I attended the Brevard Music Center’s Summer Institute and Festival in Brevard, North Carolina. During my six weeks in the piano program at the Brevard Music Center (BMC), I took weekly lessons with the piano faculty, attended masterclasses and lectures, performed in recitals, and heard concerts almost every night.
I am currently going into my senior year at Ohio State. With this comes questions about what my future will look like career-wise. I am double majoring in piano performance and economics and have been trying to gain more experience in both areas of study to help me decide what path I would like to go down after graduation. Before attending the institute, I had some ideas of what a music career could look like, whether from family members or my professors at Ohio State’s School of Music. The various activities I participated in as a student in BMC’s piano program helped me learn about teaching lessons and being a performer at a high level, among other things.
Each week, I took an hour-long lesson with my assigned teacher. I studied with two different university professors at BMC, taking three lessons with each. In addition to my lessons, I attended a one-hour studio class every week. All students taking lessons with a specific teacher attend their studio class. During studio class, we get to hear our peers play. Sometimes my teacher would have a few students play and give them feedback. Other times, the whole studio would take an hour to run pieces we would be playing for recitals or masterclasses later in the week. Both studio class formats are helpful in different ways. Hearing a fellow student get feedback can give you ideas for how to play pieces in the future, while getting opportunities to play for an audience, even if small, is always helpful when preparing for performances.
Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, the piano program would attend an hour-long masterclass, usually led by one of the piano faculty. A masterclass is essentially a public lesson; students participating in the masterclass might prepare a movement of a sonata or some other short piece and then receive feedback from the teacher running the class. In addition to the masterclasses given by the piano faculty each week, the piano students had the opportunity to attend special masterclasses held by visiting artists. Masterclasses are instructive for both the students participating and those in the audience. Watching the piano faculty give these masterclasses allowed me to observe different teaching styles and think about how I might implement elements into my teaching in the future.
Another huge part of my time at the institute was practicing. Every student in the piano program was supposed to practice for about four hours every day. I usually practiced for two hours after breakfast and two hours after lunch. Getting that much practice time per day is rare when I’m in school because of all the classes I have to take across both majors each semester. The more time I can devote to practicing, the more quickly I can learn pieces and improve. Learning the most effective way to practice also takes time. The more I practice, the faster I can learn how to be efficient with the time I have. Practicing is an essential part of a professional musician’s life. Many of the piano faculty at BMC encouraged us to take advantage of our practice time there, saying that it will become so much harder to find practice time when/if we choose a music career.
The view from one of my practice rooms.
The last thing I had the opportunity to do at BMC was perform. The first weekend we were there, each student had to audition for the piano faculty so they could determine teacher placement. Auditions are a big part of music school, but it is hard to practice auditioning. Though we were already accepted into the program, auditioning for teacher placement allowed students to feel the nerves you get when you only have one chance to show your preparation and skill. During the first week there, I also performed the first movement of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor for the piano faculty. About a month before I arrived at BMC, I had sent in a video audition of this movement for the annual concerto competition. I was very excited to be selected as a semi-finalist because it allowed me to share a piece I love playing with others. In the days leading up to the semi-final round, I rehearsed with another pianist who played the orchestral part on a second piano. Pianists rarely get the opportunity to play with one another, so I had a lot of fun working with my collaborative pianist. The last performance opportunity I had at BMC was during the final piano recital of the summer when I performed a piece by Frederic Chopin. I had spent the weeks leading up to the performance working on it with my teacher there and playing it for studio class. I learned so much while improving it that I know will transfer to other pieces I play in the future.
Getting ready to perform in the concerto competition semi-finals!
No matter whether I decide to pursue a music career or one in economics, my experiences at BMC have given me a lot to think about when considering future plans. If I decide to pursue a career in music, my time at BMC has made me think about what kind of teacher I would want to be and whether I would want to be teaching-focused or performance-focused. If I decide to do something else as a career, I will bring traits I have developed over many years and continued to develop at BMC. Learning how to give helpful feedback, like that provided by teachers in studio classes or masterclasses, will be important in a corporate setting. Being detail-oriented and learning to apply critical feedback, skills I am developing through practicing and lessons will also be valuable when working in any job. I will remember my time at the Brevard Music Center’s Summer Institute and Festival for many years. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to meet so many fantastic professional musicians and learn more about their careers.