Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 5, 1990 TAG: 9004040324
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The two-week inaugural session of the Virginia Chamber Music Academy will begin June 10. It will include public concerts by both students and faculty, on June 17 and 24.
Selected other events, such as faculty rehearsals and guest lectures, also will be open to the public.
Blacksburg-based violinist Sharon Polifrone, a Juilliard School graduate and former member of the Audubon Quartet, is artistic director of the academy and a member of its faculty.
Other teachers will be West German cellist Ulrich Boeckheler and pianists Susan Starr and Teresa Gravino Ehrlich.
The students will be 18 and older and are expected to represent a regional area of eight or 10 states. They will be selected, in part, on the basis of their recorded performances of prescribed passages from Beethoven, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Haydn and Mozart.
The first-season goal is 20 students, though the academy is prepared to proceed with fewer until it establishes itself and builds a reputation. Sharon Polifrone said student quality will not be sacrificed for numbers.
The academy's purpose, she said, is to expose students to a broader variety of musical ideas than they tend to get in conventional training circumstances. She said they tend to attach themselves to one teacher, school and group of students, with the result that "experience is limited musically."
At the Virginia Chamber Music Academy, students will deliberately be placed with different teachers each week.
"In one place, students can get exposure to different musical thoughts," the artistic director said. "I don't think there is another place that has this as the basic premise."
Polifrone said the academy should not be confused with a music festival, which tends to be performance-oriented. Though there will be concerts, she said, "the focus will be on educating the next generation of musicians."
Polifrone said her "pie-in-the-sky" goal is for the academy to grow into a month-long event with 40 or 50 students and an appropriately larger faculty, weekly concerts (including one in Roanoke), extensive outreach programs and a concert tour to places such as Charlottesville, Richmond and Washington.
Academy students will pay tuition of $300 for the session and will be responsible for all meals except breakfast. They will live in the homes of Blacksburg residents, some of whom already have offered accommodations.
"The townspeople are really wonderful about that," Polifrone said.
The academy has an eight-member board of directors. Its president is Jon Polifrone, husband of the artistic director. He is a composer and a member of the music faculty at Virginia Tech.
The academy has no official connection with Tech. Classes, rehearsals and concerts will take place at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church.
In the hope of building community support for the academy, it is being explained for arts patrons, music lovers and business and civic leaders at "educational meetings" in the area.
A public fund-raising event is set for 5 p.m. Saturday, April 28 at Blacksburg's Red Lion Inn. There will be champagne and hors d'oeuvres and music by the Audubon Quartet, Sharon Polifrone and jazz violinist Joe Kennedy Jr., who teaches at Tech and is a member of the academy's board. are $18. information about the Virginia Chamber Music Academy and the April 28 fund-raiser can be obtained from Jon Polifrone at 552-8671 in Blacksburg or Sharon Polifrone at (312) 472-7839 in Chicago, where she is performing.
by CNB