How we spent our summer vacation!

The Fall 2012 semester is in full swing at the Eastman School of Music. The horns at ESM had busy summers and we thought we would share how we spent our summer vacations.

This summer Emily Wozniak stayed in Rochester and worked at Eastman’s Institute for Music Leadership and as an intern for the Eastman Community Music School. She also designed the upcoming season for Sound ExChange, started a fundraising campaign for the orchestra, and gave a TEDTalk!

Ally Schuler spent her summer working as a counselor at a day camp in her home town.  She went on daily field trips around the Cincinnati area and lead a music club for the camp’s talent show.  At the end of the summer she attended the Lake George Summer Music Festival, a newer festival that focuses on chamber and orchestral music.

This summer, Russell Rybicki stuck around for graduation to see his fellow colleagues off. Congrats class of 2012! After that, he spent time in Rochester practicing and playing for a few gigs in the area. The first two weeks of June, Russell headed to Chestertown, Maryland with Daniel Brottman and Johanna Gruskin (ESM Flautist) for the National Music Festival where he had the distinguished pleasure of working with renowned natural hornist and legendary performer, Lowell Greer. He was fortunate enough to be selected to perform in place of Lowell Greer for the Mozart “Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds” with the oboe, bassoon, and clarinet faculty. What a treat that was! Russell had a great time and met a lot of great people at the short 2 week festival.

After the 7 hour drive back to Rochester, Russell was an usher for the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival. This was probably one of the most stressful jobs he had been put into (more-so than playing principal on a major piece!). After making a lot of money ushering, Russell had rehearsal for the Gil Evans Centennial Project with Renée Vogen and Sasami Ashworth. Rehearsals were 4 hours a day for a week before the entire jazz ensemble was shipped off to Perugia, Italy for the Umbria Jazz Festival! While there, the group was able to rehearse and perform in the gorgeous Teatro Morlachi.

After the life-changing trip to Italy, Russell spent 5 days in Rochester, and then flew to Austin, Texas to visit his home for 10 days. He was able to reconnect with old friends from high school, drive to Rice in Houston to visit one of his best friends from the Eastman horn studio, Maura McCune, and meet her new fiancé, and play horn outside in the shaded heat.

After returning to Rochester from Texas, Russell spent almost everyday watching the Olympics while practicing his fundamentals on horn. This was probably the most productive month he has had at Eastman. He was able to relax, focus on simple things, watch amazing moments happen during the Olympics, and gear up for his final year at Eastman.

Junior Emily Duffy worked as a Summer Resident Advisor for the high school music camps at the Eastman dorm, which gave her time to explore beautiful Lake Ontario.

Third year DMA student Lauren Becker spent most of June working as a staff member at Kendall Betts Horn Camp. ESM sophomore horns Abby Black and Chelsea Nelson were also there as participants for the first week of KBHC. Lauren returned to New Hampshire in July to perform with the North Country Chamber Players in the White Mountains Music Festival, and then headed down to Oneonta, NY to teach at the third session New York Summer Music Festival. She was  fortunate to have sophomore hornist Caitlin Smith as one of her counselors, and had a wonderful time teaching the fourteen NYSMF hornists and performing in the faculty recital.

Over the summer, Emily Browne attended the Spectrum Brass Seminar at the Bay View Music Festival, performing in a brass quintet, a large brass ensemble, and working with members of Spectrum Brass. While at Bay View, she was lucky enough to perform in a master class with Eric Reed, horn player for the Canadian Brass. She also performed two recitals, one in Houston and one in her hometown of State College.

This summer, Lucy Olson spent six weeks near Acadia National Park at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians.  She played a lot of exciting repertoire and a lot of Frisbee too.  While at home in New Jersey, Lucy worked at the Symphony in C’s “Souper Symphony Summer Camp”, funded by the Campbell’s Soup Foundation, in Camden, New Jersey.

This summer, Grace Shafer took a leap outside of her comfort zone to learn how to connect to symphonies and orchestral directors in her area by making personal phone calls to find opportunities. Lo and behold, there were indeed orchestras needing a horn player, so she spent much of her summer in rehearsals and concerts locally with the Nittany Valley Symphony and the State College Summer Orchestra, as well as playing in church services. She also spent about three and a half weeks in England visiting her sister, who was working as an opera singer at Glyndebourne, and Grace thoroughly enjoyed the immense and rich history, as well as getting to practice in an 18th century church every day!

Summer was great, but it sure is wonderful to be back at ESM and starting a new school year!