Saturday Sessions

Too busy for a full semester of lessons or classes but want music in your life?  Explore our new series of Saturday workshops, master classes, and “short courses!”

(These events are dependent on minimum advance enrollment.  While last minute dropins are welcome please check to make sure the class is running!)

More Saturday Sessions Coming up in 2017!

“MusicMatch”

Bill Shontz
March – stay tuned for date and time!

Do you have a musical instrument you haven’t picked up for years?  Do you wish you had someone to play with, but don’t know where to go to meet them? Do you wish you knew like-minded players who like the same music as you and would like to get together and just HAVE FUN? Then this gathering is for you!!
Dust off that instrument, get some new reeds or bore oil and bring that instrument to our first meeting.
We will check out your instrument, and begin to “MusicMatch” you with other players who like the same kind of music and are roughly on the same level.

More on the way – stay “tuned!”

Past Offerings: Some of these may well show up again in the future.  If you are interested in a particular one please let us know!

How to Listen (…as you have never listened before)
Hugh Keelan

We all think we are great listeners – what happens when our minds wander, or we get distracted or get trapped in a highly personalized response? As listeners we frequently operate from assumptions, possibly also ‘fight or flight’. We are bewitched by what we love, and are confused or annoyed when we hear something we don’t like.  What universes of delight do we simply not experience?  I promise not to persuade you to like something you don’t like – that is doomed endeavor!

Getting Past (Musical) Roadblocks
Hugh Keelan

Music is about expression. What have you not found the courage to express?
We all face moments of wanting to express something very particular, then bump up against something in the way…then, maybe, we become self-critical or frustrated. There are other times where we don’t know we are blocked, but others can hear and feel it.
If you are a student or performer, bring something specific where you encounter a block.

For any musician. Spectators also welcome, you will be helping the musicians to be generous.

Master Class: Chamber Music Coaching
Hugh Keelan

This is a masterclass in coaching and being coached. A group Hugh is playing with will bring Schubert’s Trout Quintet. Please email hughkeelan@hotmail.com if you are a chamber group who would ENJOY a free public coaching! (Key word: ‘enjoy’) Performers and audience members welcome!

The Aging Voice: Singing For a Lifetime
Jennifer Hansen

Understand the changes in body and voice that affect singers in the sixth decade and beyond, so that the question (and the answers) change from WHETHER to keep singing to HOW to keep singing!  Choir directors, singing teachers, and singers are all welcome!  (Minimum enrollment 5)

Voice Refresher for Music Educators
Jennifer Hansen

• Particpants will
  • examine their own vocal technique (both the singing and the speaking voice) with a view to maintain a healthy voice through the classroom year
  • learn a few simple, useful warm up
  • receive tools for solving typical choral problem areas such as:  postural problems in head and neck; register shifts between low, medium and high registers in female voices; smoothly bridging chest voice and falsetto for changing/changed male voices; improving tone quality and resonance throughout the range of the young singer; breathiness and breath management
  • discover key pitfalls/learn shortcuts to improve performance of each common singing language
  • identify unhelpful and helpful language when talking about/teaching singing

Music educators, choir directors, voice students and choral singers are all welcome!

An Introduction to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
Hugh Keelan

Why does some music endure and captivate, what makes a masterpiece timeless and unknowable?
What is it like to live only in extremes of experience?
What do we yearn for, but can’t express in speech?
What happens when we ‘wake up?’
If you are man, what would you say to Tristan? If a woman…?
If you are a woman, what would you say to Isolde? If a man…?

For anyone with a beating heart.

Voice Audition Workshop
Junko Watanabe and Jennifer Hansen

Participants will learn how to prepare mentally and musically for Musical Theater and Classical Singing auditions. Format includes discussion, question and answer, and master class/mock audition where all participants will perform with piano and receive critical feedback. Includes topics such as making good cuts in the music, talking to the pianist before singing, where to look in the room, how to choose your best material for success.

Workshop is designed for high school and adult singers; those auditioning for New England Solo and Ensemble Festivals and college auditions.

Stage Fright and Performance Nerves
Hugh Keelan

I pretend I don’t have nerves…but I do! I just suppress them, so I can convince others that I don’t get nervous, it gets so complicated! What do YOU do? It might be fear of lessons, a particular personality, performing in public, having a cold, a shaky bow. Maybe you know what’s in your way… and it’s STILL in your way! Let’s find out what’s on the other side. For any musician: spectators also welcome as participants to help us with our anxieties, you will have a role in this workshop!

Beginning Solfege
Richard Ullman

This is the first lesson in Sight-singing and Ear Training. Its intention is to help choral singers, solo singers, and instrumentalists who all want to bring a higher level of musicianship to their tasks. With this training, people can better hear more than one part in their solo playing and ensembles. Rhythmic training is emphasized.  The best music lesson is the one in which one does music and not, simply, talk about music. This class is an active class for active participants!  We’ll begin at the beginning. Don’t be afraid if you are a newcomer to this material.