Summer Camp at The Nelly Berman School of Music!

The week long summer camp at The Nelly Berman School of Music, for students ages 8-16, offers an unusually high-quality, personalized program for up to 20 students, providing unparalleled one-on-one attention. The emphasis is on the quality of instruction, the results of which can be heard by the parents and friends themselves at the end of camp concert on the Friday of each session. Students taking both weeks of camp will have the opportunity to participate in different chamber groups, learn more repertoire, and go more in depth in the course work offered.

Session 1: July 13 - 17

Session 2: August 3 - 7

The camp runs from 8:45 AM to 3:45 PM, Monday through Friday. Before and after care is available.

Classes Offered

Introduction to Baroque Music History

Introduction to Baroque Dance with a baroque dance specialist (either participate or observe)

Composition using figured bass and improvisation

Baroque Performance Practice in Keyboard, String and Wind Instruments

Chamber Music for keyboard (including harpsichord), strings, winds, and four-hand duets

Capture the Flag and other outside activities

Broadway Tunes

Lunch and Movies

Course Description

The Baroque era was an exciting time in musical history. Composers produced music that was full of fantasy, whimsy, and deep emotion. Instrumentalists and vocalists alike reached new levels of virtuosity and expressiveness. The rhythms of the dance pervaded all aspects of musical life, from the grace and elegance of the French court dances, to the fiery audacity of the Southern Italian Tarantella, and Spanish Folia. This 5 day course explores Baroque music, instruments, dance, theory, and history. Students will investigate the music of the Baroque by playing solo and chamber music, practicing baroque improvisation, trying out baroque dance steps, and asking the same questions about music-making that Baroque musicians asked: Is it better to amaze or move the audience? What is good taste in music and how do you know if you have it? How is music similar to or different from other artistic disciplines?

In each lesson, students will learn about the colorful history surrounding baroque musical life including the musical orphans of Naples (boys) and Venice (girls), and illustrations of folk music, stories, and nature in sound form. Students will learn to identify defining characteristics of baroque music, understand and practice the art of basso continuo (music improvised from a bass-line), and tell the difference between national styles of music making in the baroque era. By the end of the course we will ask ourselves how knowledge of the Baroque era can affect how we think about and perform music of later eras. After this course, students will be able to play Bach’s music with a new sense of historical context, to more fully understand Beethoven’s love of Handel and C.P.E. Bach, and to trace the influence of baroque musical idioms from Brahms and Mendelssohn to the present day.

Faculty

Benjamin Katz teaches Baroque music history, theory, and harpsichord performance. In 2013-14 he was the recipient of a grant from the Beebe Foundation to pursue musicological research at the Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London. Katz has performed as soloist and chamber musician in the USA, Canada, and Europe. He was worked extensively as an accompanist for renowned Philadelphia-based soprano Julianne Baird and for Dorothy Olsson and Kaspar Mainz of the New York Baroque Dance Company. He holds degrees in harpsichord from the Oberlin Conservatory and Longy School of Music.

Dr. Laura Katz Rizzo is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Temple University, where she received her M.A. in Dance Education and Ph.D. in Dance. Rizzo has taught at Mount Holyoke College, Bryn Mawr College, Drexel University, the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet, the Dance Theatre of the Southwest and Ballet Theater of New Mexico. Laura Katz Rizzo is a ballet choreographer, scholar and pedagogue. She has written articles, book reviews and teaching guides for dance publications and institutions such as Dance Chronicle, Playbill Magazine, and The Brooklyn Academy of Music and has performed with classical ballet companies including New York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, the Russian Ballet Theatre of Delaware, the Santa Fe Opera Company, and several contemporary and baroque dance companies

For more information and to download a registration form, please visit www.nbsmusic.com.