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Summer Music Festivals

How much did you spend for orchestral summer music festivals? I grew up on a limited income and my friends told me that paid around 5k for a summer festival.. I don’t know if it’s true since it’s so expensive. Please advise.

18 answers0 replies

18 Comments

Kreisler

Jun 27

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Here's a good breakdown of the major student festivals in the US, at least from what I've seen or heard from people who go there. All of these are free or close to free. This is more applicable for string players; I'm writing this quickly and probably forgetting some.

Marlboro, Ravinia, Menlo, Yellow Barn, Four Seasons - prestigious, fancy, and high level chamber music festivals, full fellowships. If you can get into one of these, you probably have management, a budding chamber music career, or will win a very nice job soon.

Verbier, PMF, Tanglewood, Music Academy - the top student orchestra festivals, all of them free. If you can get into these when in school and keep improving, you're probably on the right track to eventually win a job within a few years - and sometimes, going to one of these will get you past the resume round at auditions. Most top orchestra musicians in the US have been to one of these, but certainly not all.

Perlman chamber workshop, Sarasota, Taos, Colorado College, Madeline Island fellowship, Kneisel Hall - I think these all charge enough of an administrative fee ($500-1000) that I wouldn't call them "free", the level is generally high level conservatory students, more of the chamber music crowd but sometimes a lot of the same people from the four orchestra festivals I mentioned above.

Aspen fellowship, NRO - good student orchestra festivals, free, with a lower standard of playing to get in.

NOI, Round Top, TMF, Aspen, Brevard, EMF - a lot of people start here. These charge varying amounts of money, I think the first three have administrative fees and housing costs and the last three have tuition.

There are some festivals with a lower level of entry which charge a lot of money for people to play in orchestra. I would not recommend any of these for those seriously considering a full time orchestra career.

I had some lucky audition results early on and never paid tuition for a summer festival. The years I couldn't get a fellowship somewhere, I stayed wherever I was going to college, worked, and practiced. The fact that orchestra festivals exist that charge tuition is extortionist enough - don't aid the problem unless you truly can afford it and you really think it will help you more than lessons and private time at the instrument.

Kreisler

Jul 12

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Replying to

These days plenty of people attending Ravinia and Yellow Barn are in YCA/CAG type management - obviously, that's starter management, but it's still management. I've heard as well that Marlboro pays people to attend who stand to lose money for missing summer concerts. There are also comparatively fewer concerts to go around in the soloist world these days, at least for people who I went to school with. Some of these people are still looking for more recognition and connections.

Your second point is really important, and I'm regretting that the original post came across as so hierarchical! Summer festivals evolve when they are well funded and have consistent faculty. The Stanford chamber music seminar, for example, is a unique and fun concept and has a ridiculous amount of money for students. They've gone from "pretty much anyone can go" to a selective training ground for the top quartets in a few years. As you said, good faculty and good funding will attract top students and slowly make a festival more "exclusive" and "prestigious." So sometimes identifying festivals that are on the rise and doing well with fundraising/faculty can be a good way to go. If a festival is serious and successful about fundraising, they'll usually have a way to pay for students who are economically disadvantaged and have a manageable cost for everyone else.