Author: Callie Maurer| Major: Music in Piano Performance | Semester: Summer 2024

This summer, I had the privilege of attending the 2024 Atlantic Music Festival for 6 weeks of rehearsals, lessons, masterclasses, studio classes, concerts, and complete immersion in the world of ‘classical’ music on a level that I have never experienced before. Split into two sessions of 3 weeks, I performed in two student chamber concerts and both piano institute recitals, all with entirely new repertoire. After coming home from the festival, I can confidently say my musicianship and understanding of my craft is wildly renewed and more thorough.

Hosted in Waterville, ME at Colby College, the Atlantic Music Festival has programs for all orchestral instruments and piano. Thanks to the guidance of my research mentor (and piano professor) Dr. Xiting Yang, I participated in the AMF Piano Institute alongside 10-13 other pianists close to my age, practicing and performing alongside them for 5-6 hours each day.

I performed in a masterclass, working with Dr. Yi-Yang Chen from the University of Kansas

With 2 lessons each week, rehearsals and coachings with my chamber group (one group per three weeks), masterclasses by some of the most incredible piano faculty in the U.S., and countless chances to perform in front of my peers, I was able to learn a total of 3 character pieces, 1 movement of a classical sonata, and three movements of chamber pieces, performing all 7 throughout my 6 weeks. Through this experience, I gained a better understanding of my own strengths and weaknesses while learning methods for streamlining the process of learning and interpreting music. I was exposed to the teaching styles of each faculty member who visited, and I learned from my peers how their relationships with their teachers/professors impacts their  learning and playing.

Festivals like this are almost always socially focused as well. These are opportunities to meet peers and established musicians for both networking and growing purposes. I definitely clicked with 5 or 6 of the piano faculty, and I’ve connected with countless dedicated peers who I hope to work with professionally in the future. I gained so much more perspective of my instrument and for interpretation because of my hour-long lessons with each faculty member, but also from discussing material with my peers in the Piano Institute. We discussed what we learned from our lessons, taking and leaving what made sense and what did not suit our style. These kinds of processes are vital for our development as individual artists.

With ample opportunities to perform, I have become so much more comfortable on stage. I’ve become astronomically more adaptable in terms of the piano I’m performing with, the space I’m performing in, and performing as a whole is simply more comfortable, allowing my artistic intentions to come across much more effectively.

I cannot recommend this festival enough to any musician, especially those who are serious about pursuing a career in high-level performance and/or teaching. I recommend it even more strongly for pianists because of how intensely focused and varied our learning was this year.

Now that I’ve participated in this festival, I feel more ready to complete my degree and to construct my research project. This coming year, while preparing material for my junior recital, I will be reading and analyzing the compositions of the Belgian-French composer César Franck and looking at how his relationship with his students impacted his compositional development. I’ll be looking to travel to meet more pianists and attend another festival next summer in order to specifically develop material for my thesis recital and gain more understanding towards the topic of student-teacher relationships.