Mother Lode Friends of Music
Critique: Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop
 Humboldt State University
18 - 30 June 2001
Brian McGreevy, Pianist

PreCamp Preparation
All campers are expected to sight read music. While this is relatively easy for musicians who only have to read one note at a time, the strings for example, it is very difficult for pianists who must play cords and push pedals at the same time. To level the playing field, these poor pianists are given their music in advance to practice. In preparation for the camp, I practiced about six hours a day for 21 straight days on the following pieces under the eye of my piano teacher, Ron Brickman. I had never practiced so much in my life, but it was worth it!

  • Variations on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", Burnet Tuthill
  • Klaviertrio C Dur, Johann Christian Bach
  • Caliope Himno No. 9 de las Musas de Andalucia, Joaquin Turina
  • Seven Scottish Airs, Gustav Holst
  • Miniatures No. 7 Valse Russe, Frank Bridge
  • Pre du Bal, No 2- Flirt, Henri Sauguet
  • Miniatures No. 7 Marche Militaire, Frank Bridge
  • Quartett fur Violine, flote, Violoncello un Basso continuo, e-moll, Teleman
  • Pre du Bal, No 1- Amazone, Henri Sauguet

Campers
The camp lasted for two weeks. There was about 30 campers at each session and a dozen of them attended both sessions including lucky me. These campers were serious musicians who play in many of the youth orchestras in Northern California. The youngest camper was 11 years old and the oldest was 21. We stayed in the student dormitories and ate in the University Cafeteria. Living on campus was GREAT!

Chamber Music Coaching
Each morning the campers read the bulletin board for their daily assignment, musical group and room. One camper picked up the music at the library and was responsible for returning it when finished. The music coaches (piano coach, strings coach, winds coach) helped us rehearse our pieces for the public performance the same evening. My piano coach was Paulina Zamora who was 'all business'! Each day there were three rehearsals, 8:30 -10:30 a.m., 2:00 - 4:00 p.m., and 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Each group performed at 7:00 p.m. in a chamber music concert for the public. In the first evening I played a Teleman quartet on a harpsichord and that was 'coooool'. More information on the daily schedule can be found online.

Theory Class/Composition
This class was fun! We learned about Dorian and Phygrian scales and tonic chords etc. We also composed music. Each student had to compose a piece everyday and on the last day we wrote 16 measure duets.

Master Class
In Master Class we studied the life J.S. Bach. One of the classes included a demonstration of some old instruments: a clavichord, harpsichord, baroque flute, baroque horn, baroque clarinet and a baroque violin. The professor even let us play them!

Free-Lancing
During freelancing my friends Raphael, a violist, Carlos, a cellist, and I, a pianist would create trios. We did free lancing every night of the week from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Lights Out: 10:30 p.m.

Concert
Each of the 12 groups performed an average of five minutes four times during the week in public. The attendance at the Saturday performances was three hundred people.

Paulina Zamora's recommendations for study this coming year:
  1. Start every practice with 10 minutes of scales.
  2. Practice sight reading new music for twenty minutes every day.
  3. Study fundamental music theory.
  4. Study the following pieces:
    • Bach, Anna Magdalena collection of short pieces.
    • Bach, Two Voice Inventions, five of them.
    • Bele Bartok: Mikrokosmos Vol.2 and up.
    • Haydn's early sonatinas.
  5. Play with musicians, both piano duets and chamber music as much as possible.

Conclusions
The Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop was a lot of learning, a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun. I met many young musicians and we talk to each other every night on AOL Instant Manager. I really hope to play with them again at Sequoia 2002!


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Updated 12 Aug 2001