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Mac, Jolie and Tom McShane. Photo by Lauren Rock.

In Chautauqua, pair of rising stars find a place to find themselves

August 25, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

“There is just something about Chautauqua at 6 a.m. that cannot be described,” said Mac McShane, 16-year-old circulation manager of The Chautauquan Daily. “My route is my way to relax. It’s just me, the cool morning air, and a list of houses.”

The kid everyone calls Mac spends his summers working at the Daily, along with waiting tables at Intermezzo at Chautauqua.

En route, he delivers the paper on his scooter to people all throughout the grounds, including to Institution President Tom Becker.

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Tim Bartlett, 16, from Cassadaga, N.Y., plays drums at rehearsal. Bartlett also plays guitar. Photo by Adam Birkan.

Music Camp students cap off intense week with performances today, Saturday

August 17, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

You hear the gators snapping,” said band conductor Terry Bacon about “Alligator Alley,” which is one of several pieces the Chautauqua Music Camp will play this weekend.

The band and orchestra camps will perform 12 p.m. Saturday at Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. The jazz camp members will perform 2 p.m. today in Fletcher Music Hall. The camp features students in middle school and high school.

“It has staged percussion in various sections of the hall,” said clarinet coach Debbie Grohman. “It’s like alligators come out of the swamp.”

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Ashcroft

Scholarships help voice student Ashcroft further career

August 14, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

There is a video of Sarah Ashcroft when she was 2 years old belting out “The Little Mermaid” from the confines of her stroller.

Now 22, the Chautauqua School of Music student working toward her master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music realizes singing was meant for her all along.

Through the Chautauqua Connections program, a community volunteer organization that links Chautauqua families with School of Music, dance and art students, Ashcroft was paired with Hale and Judy Oliver, who invited her and their other Connections students to dinner each Sunday. The students all bring a piece to play or sing.

As it turns out, the Olivers also provided scholarship support for Ashcroft to study at Chautauqua this summer. The Chautauqua Foundation reaches out to scholarship donors in the spring, inviting them to contact the scholarship recipient and connect during the season.

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David Effron Conducting Fellow Roderick Cox leads the MSFO during a performance in July. Photo by Adam Birkan.

Cox, Muffitt, MSFO close ‘beyond fantastic’ season tonight

August 13, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

“These pieces are the blockbuster pieces for the Romantic period,” said David Effron Conducting Fellow Roderick Cox about the Music School Festival Orchestra’s finale at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.

The program highlights Wagner’s “Overture and Venusburg Music,” from the opera Tannhäuser, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 27 in E Minor.

Cox will lead off the concert’s direction with a composer and piece he deeply admires.

“Wagner has a great deal of passion, beauty and intelligence,” he said. “It’s just all around a wonderful masterpiece that I am very honored to get to do with these musicians.”

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Five years after renovations, School of Music is finally at home

August 12, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Chautauquans often speak about how much the presence of young artists and musicians contributes to the atmosphere on the grounds. It seems as though creativity walks up and down the avenues all day and far into the night, with music drifting out of this hall or that.

Five years ago, the Chautauqua Foundation’s Idea Campaign sought to improve the halls from which the music flows at Chautauqua. The generosity of many dedicated Chautauquans made possible an expansion and renovation to the School of Music.

The renovations and new facilities have earned Chautauqua, among other things, the endorsement of Steinway and Sons and the increased ability to recruit the highest-caliber students, as well as a reputation for environmental consciousness.

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Thursday Morning Brass to play second Bestor Plaza concert, raise scholarship money

August 11, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

When trumpet player Larry Katz thought about college, he could not dream of studying anything but music. Years later, as a member of the Thursday Morning Brass band, he helps to raise money for college students with that same dream who come to participate in Chautauqua’s School of Music.

Chautauqua’s Thursday Morning Brass band will play its semi-annual Bestor Plaza concert at 12:15 p.m. Sunday on Bestor Plaza.

The brass band will play for donations, all of which will contribute to the fund for School of Music scholarships. Last season, the Chautauqua Amateur Music Program (CAMP) raised more than $4,000 to sponsor students.

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Recital features ‘beast of an instrument’ double bass

August 11, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Standing as one of the tallest instruments in music, the 6-foot double bass still knows how to get low — in pitch.

Distinguished bassist Curtis Burris, the School of Music’s strings chair, leads the Music School Festival Orchestra’s bass section in its student recital from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday in McKnight Hall.

“They’re the basis of the orchestra,” Burris said about his seven bassists. “They’re the foundation.”

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Arie Lipsky conducts the Music School Festival Orchestra cello section in rehearsal at Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. Photo by Adam Birkan.

Arie’s Angels show the cello has a voice, too

August 10, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Ten cellists and a singer transform into “Arie’s Angels” in the season-ending student recital from 2 to 3:30 p.m. today in McKnight Hall.

“It’s a cello party,” said chamber music chair Arie Lipsky.

The program features pieces from Heitor Villa-Lobos and Richard Strauss.

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 is Villa-Lobos’s way of giving Bach to Brazil.

“It’s an homage to Bach,” Lipsky said. “If Villa-Lobos has a cellphone, he’d probably have Bach as his ringtone.”

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