What’s the easiest way to make sure a future for a music pageant, and by extension, a musical artwork kind itself? By including extra focus to the subsequent technology. That’s the thought behind an growth of the youth programming being provided on the Collingwood Music Competition, going down this yr from July 9 to 18.
We talked to Inventive Director Daniel Vnukowski about what’s new, and what’s being provided to youthful music lovers on the Competition.
Daniel Vnukowski, Inventive Director
Daniel based the Competition in 2019 to carry a serious music pageant to the attractive Southern Georgian Bay space of Ontario. Alongside along with his position as Inventive Director of the Collingwood Music Competition, Daniel Vnukowski has a busy profession as a live performance pianist and in addition because the host of the Classical Jukebox on the New Classical FM radio station. He studied on the Lake Como Worldwide Piano Academy in Italy, the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, and on the Guildhall College of Music and Drama in London. Along with concert events in Canada, Europe and Asia, he has been devoted to schooling and outreach efforts, together with a sequence of performances in distant communities.
Highlights of this yr’s expanded youth and neighborhood programming embody:
- The annual Youth Academy has been expanded to 5 days with scholarships;
- A Rising Star live performance sequence;
- Native college outreach to greater than 500 college students;
- A free out of doors Symphony Below the Stars.
The Interview
“It’s so integral to our development,” Vnukowski says of the deal with subsequent gen applications.
As he notes, together with different concerns, it’s a response to altering demographics within the Georgian Bay area. An increasing number of households are transferring right into a area that was as soon as recognized largely as a trip space.
“We sort of wished to develop right into a mini Tanglewood right here.”
The Youth Academy is a program for musicians age 24 and below, with candidates chosen by audition. Expanded to 5 from three days beforehand, occasions happen within the Nationwide Ski Academy services, and embody an intensive masterclass, youth expertise evening, concert events, and a chamber music group. Scholarships will cowl 20% of the schooling charges.
“It’s having fives days of actually immersive instruction,” he notes. The pure setting is a part of the enchantment.
Together with occasions in the course of the Competition, the college outreach program is a vital element. “We actually need to hit the colleges once more,” he says.
It’s was a problem to restart that outreach publish pandemic, as he stories, but it surely’s important, notably contemplating the dearth of music schooling being provided within the college system. He believes that concentrating on center college youngsters aged about 10 to 12 is essential, and the response is greatest. “It’s earlier than the peer strain will get to them.,” he explains. It’s an age the place youngsters begin to need to know extra concerning the world round them. “That’s the sort of candy spot.”
He mentions the thrill the younger performers have had in earlier Festivals once they work with nationally and internationally acknowledged performers just like the Elmer Iseler Singers. “They’re so inspiring once they work with youth.” The mentors this yr embody cellist Roman Borys, violinist Sharon Lee, mezzo soprano Andrea Ludwig, and Vnuknowski himself.
Vnukowski says the response to their name for video auditions went past their expectations, together with each the Youth Academy and Rising Star live performance sequence.
“We didn’t count on to have a full home,” he stated of final yr’s live performance. “That was vastly profitable.”
Summer time and Past
Across the core of summer time’s Competition week, including extra concert events and occasions all year long will preserve the momentum. That can embody high touring artists.
“That’s within the works for the autumn,” he says. “It’s a pure development. We’ve come from a mother and pop group taking part in in cottages.” It’s now an occasion with a real sense of neighborhood. “It’s very festive.”
The Competition has a notable financial influence on the bigger neighborhood, but it surely’s about greater than {dollars} and sense.
“It’s helps the newcomer discover a sense of belonging,” he says. “It might assist teenagers discover themselves as they develop up.”
The Symphony Below The Stars, a free out of doors live performance that’s being launched this yr, goals to carry the Competition expertise to a broader viewers, together with those that could not assume that orchestral music is their factor. This system will embody well-known classical works, together with film music and orchestral preparations of pop. “All the same old suspects,” Daniel says.
An exit survey will assist them decide the influence. Are they newcomers to the Competition? Did they get pleasure from it — sufficient to return again?
“As you may see, we’re branching out,” he says. “When the ten years olds turn into 65 yr olds, are they nonetheless shopping for tickets?”
- Discover out extra concerning the Collingwood Music Competition [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.