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NURTURING EXCELLENCE ONE STUDENT AT A TIME: CIM’S NEW ACADEMY
By Suzanne de Roulet
Students in CIM’s new Youth Program explore the piano. (Photo by Tanya Rosen Jones)
“I want to try something new,” Jennifer Call instructs the seven high school students in front of her.
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in a classroom at CIM. The students, arranged in a semi-circle from bass to soprano, have been working on vocal exercises in their Chamber Choir warm-up, vocalizing an “ooh” sound.
The students, continuing to “ooh,” amble around the room, pausing occasionally next to one another to hear how the notes blend differently in their new location.
“Pitch is really affected by color, by listening to each other,” says Call, artistic director of CIM’s youth choirs. After a few minutes, she asks the students to line up, the vocal parts jumbled. They harmonize again. This time, the sound is stronger, purer, the pitch more true. The students exchange murmurs of appreciation and surprise. “Sometimes, when you’re in parts,” Call says, “it doesn’t sound as strong as when you’re in mixed formation. Changing the way you’re used to doing things can make a big difference.”
EFFECTING CHANGE
She’s certainly right about that. Change at the individual level – exemplified here in the Chamber Choir – echoes the larger changes that CIM has undertaken with its Preparatory programming.
Previously, students chose off a menu of private lessons, ensembles and classes. While this approach worked for many parents and students, CIM wondered: Is this the best way to empower the world’s most talented classical music students to reach their potential?
This question was part of a larger assessment of CIM’s mission, vision and operations, undertaken ahead of the school’s centennial in 2020. One result was the choice to reduce CIM’s
Upper: Families learn about CIM’s new Academy program during an orientation session in Mixon Hall. Lower: Academy students work with choral accompanist and Academy assistant Julie Strebler. (Photos by Tanya Rosen Jones)
student body and lower the cost of tuition. Another was the recalibration of CIM’s Preparatory program to align more closely with the school’s overall mission.
Faculty, staff and Trustees, guided by President and CEO Paul Hogle, spent more than a year re-imagining the Preparatory program. Their goal was a program that’s stronger, more meaningful and more valuable to students, one certain to foster the next generation of classical musicians and music lovers.
The result, launched in fall 2022: the Academy, a new, comprehensive pre-college training program offering continuous development for young musicians.
A BROAD BUT TAILORED APPROACH
At the core of the Academy is the belief in being well-rounded. In addition to private lessons, all Academy students take musicianship courses and participate in ensembles, studio classes and master classes. They have multiple opportunities to perform together and with CIM faculty. All, too, benefit from ongoing assessments, support and mentorship from teachers and coaches.
The Academy and accompanying Youth Program are designed to meet students at their individual level of development with comprehensive and sequential music curriculum. All students eyeing a future music degree, from Pre-K to the most advanced, are supported with the classes and performance experiences to help them build the skills to achieve the next step in their journey.
Courses include choir for all youth program students, eurhythmics, music theory, Academy Chorus, orchestra and chamber music - all supporting the student’s work in private lessons. In addition, students benefit from an organized cumulative performance curriculum designed to help students build confidence and comfort in solo performance.
“The Academy brings the spirit of CIM’s college-level program, whose graduates play on revered stages around the globe, to younger students who are early in their musical journey, at a level that is right for them,” Hogle said.
A RETURN TO CIM’s ROOTS
The shift to a holistic learning experience was a major departure from the older à la carte model, but in fact it is a return to how things used to be. Indeed, this “new” model isn’t new at all, but rather one that dates to the school’s very beginnings.
In 1922, CIM’s founder, Ernest Bloch, sought to offer an education that would help young musicians develop a “feeling for rhythm” and “qualities of appreciation, judgement and taste, and to stimulate understanding and love of music.”
FOCUS ON THE INDIVIDUAL
Given the enormity of the changes involved in the Academy, it’s only natural that the program would experience some growing pains. There were those who, for whatever reason, didn’t feel comfortable with the model and sought a different path.
In those cases, CIM did what it could to guide students to musical partners in the community or to study one-on-one with CIM faculty in private studios.
Meeting individual needs, of course, is nothing new for CIM, or for the Academy. One of the program’s founding features is that it was designed with the individual in mind.
In line with CIM’s vision to “be the future of classical music,” the Academy was designed to build the next generation of classical musicians and music enthusiasts by nurturing their love of music and giving them the tools they need to pursue music at the level most meaningful to them.
Because each student is unique, with unique needs, the curriculum is structured with a one-on-one aspect that allows students to take what they need. Not every student will take the same number of courses or have the same electives.
AN ENCOURAGING START
At deadline, the Academy was barely a month old. And yet, everyone – students, parents and faculty alike – was energized and excited by the “new” comprehensive approach.
Parent Julie Strebler said she endorses the Academy’s intensive model. She said she sees tremendous value in the increased musical instruction her children receive each Saturday.
Her son Casey Renner (viola, Micci-Barreca), a sophomore, had been traveling to CIM from Akron each week for a single hour of choir practice. Now, in the Academy, he and his younger sister arrive at CIM early Saturday mornings and stay until mid-afternoon. Casey’s day includes not only Chamber Choir but also courses in music theory, eurhythmics and private viola lessons.
“As a parent, and a musician and teacher,” added Strebler, who also provides piano accompaniment for the Academy’s Chamber Choir and directs a high school choir. “I love the variety of experiences my kids get through this program, including private lessons, individual and group performance experience, theory and movement, as well as the social experiences.” Nora von der Heydt (voice, Skoog), a high school senior, was previously a choir member with CIM. Now, as an Academy student, she also takes keyboard and voice lessons, participates in Chamber Choir, and attends studio classes and a senior seminar.
Erica Lopez (viola, Veskimets/Micci-Barreca), a student who commutes nearly 90 minutes from Willard, Ohio, each week, said she appreciates how much she accomplishes at CIM in a day. She said being able to attend a viola lesson, music theory class, eurhythmics course and more makes the long journey worthwhile.
BUILDING COMMUNITY
In addition to thorough and rigorous music instruction, CIM’s Academy offers an environment of encouragement and peer support. Call said one of her goals with the Academy was to be the place where young musicians “find their people.”
It’s a good thing, too. Between classes, ensembles and recitals, Academy students spend a lot of time with their peers. Indeed, that’s one thing parents and students alike said they like most about the Academy so far.
Lopez said she also appreciates the diversity of the program. Not only do her Academy fellows hail from diverse backgrounds and cultures but they also exhibit diverse interests. In other words, like her, they love things other than music, too.
“It’s refreshing to see proof that you can be a musician and still have other passions,” Lopez said.
A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR CLASSICAL MUSIC
The Academy is off to a strong start, despite the challenges entailed in bringing it into being.
Parents are happy, students are delighted, and interest in the program continues to expand. Enrollment, too, is healthy, with more than 90 participants, one-third of whom are in the Youth Program.
But there’s still room to grow. Over the next several years, CIM hopes to see the Academy swell to some 300 participants.
“We worked really hard to build this program,” Call said. “But I’m so thrilled to see it come to fruition. It looked so good on paper, and it’s working out even better in practice.” •
CIM SNATCHES MUSICAL VICTORY WITH A POCKETFUL OF OPERAS
By Zachary Lewis
There was nothing small about A Pocketful of Operas, the collaborative project CIM presented in Mixon Hall last spring.
The pieces themselves were short, but the project as a whole was big enough to keep students and faculty all over CIM occupied for months, even years.
It almost didn’t come together at all. Conceived months before the pandemic and contingent upon collaborative singing, the project was seriously threatened by COVID-19, an airborne virus, and the lockdown it forced.
But Fitch and his colleagues weren’t about to let a brilliant idea go to waste or to deny so many students what had the potential to be a formative, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They held fast to the concept in the hope that conditions would change and their dream could be realized.
Fortunately, they won the bet. “It all worked out in the end,” Fitch said. “Everyone got to see from the inside what it is to do a project like this.”
The idea behind Pocketful of Operas was to match student composers with student performers and together have them mount productions of short, original operas of about 15 minutes each.
It was to foster collaboration of the deepest sort, beyond Fitch’s annual assignment to third-year student composers to write for a film, theater or dance project outside CIM. Fueling it all was the belief that the ability to tell a story with music and carry a production to fruition has become ever more critical.
The idea wasn’t just to benefit the composers, either. Performers, too, would have the chance – impossible with older music, but a vital part of the process with contemporary music – to engage directly with the composers and influence how the work comes together.
A student in the CIM Opera Theater program participates in a performance of “A Pocketful of Operas.” (Photo by Alex Cooke)
Four students took up Fitch’s challenge and quickly set about working under what they thought was a tight deadline. Their original goal was to conceive the operas during the 2019-20 school year, workshop them in fall 2020, and perform them in 2021.
It was not to be, of course. After the initial pandemic shutdown put the project on hold, each new phase of the virus’ spread resulted in a delay of another few weeks or months.
In time, another complication arose: one of the original four composers graduated and left CIM, before his work was finished.
Scenes from the April 2022 performances of “A Pocketful of Operas,” a collection of short new operas composed and performed by CIM students. (Photos by Alex Cooke)
That wasn’t enough to derail the project, either. The following year, to Fitch’s delight, a new master’s student composer, Emma Cardon (Fitch), arrived and took up the mantle. What’s more, Cardon already had a short opera in development: A Storm We Call Progress.
Just like that, Pocketful was back in business, and this time, the target date of April 2022 – long after CIM had learned how to operate safely amid the pandemic – seemed secure.
Now came the fun part, the part that entailed writing an opera, conceiving a short story for the stage, creating piano reductions and working with singers, designers and performers in Fitch’s New Music Ensemble and CIM Opera Theater.
Some students, such as Daniel DiMarino (BM ’22, Fitch/O. Kaler), whose Ruth was based on the Biblical figure, had to develop their own librettos. Also in this boat was Yoav Sadeh (BM ’22, Fitch), whose opera Loneliness was grounded in a short story by Bruno Schulz.
Others sought outside help. Cardon, for instance, tapped violinists Kirsten Barker and Laurana Wheeler Roderer to craft an environmental tale and Arseny Gusev (BM ’22, Fitch/ Babayan) turned to Tikhon Antonov for help with Maeterlinck’s The Blind.
By that point, the music itself came together quickly, as most of the four had begun or even finished the pieces months earlier. The scores were as different as could be. Cardon wrote for string quartet while the others employed mixed chamber ensembles and, in Gusev’s case, electronics. With help from Fitch and Germain, too, they also had little trouble producing piano reductions, which facilitated auditions and allowed singers to quickly master their roles.
Rehearsals proved the final testing ground. CIM’s Jeremy Paul served as the overall director, but Fitch, seeking to teach another important lesson, deliberately left it to the composers and performers to prepare the operas for the stage.
The maps guided everyone well. Although revisions continued right up to the premieres, both performances went off without a hitch, more than justifying the exceptional efforts that had gone into them.
Especially pleasing to Fitch was how seriously everyone took the project and how well all participants held up in unfamiliar musical territory, under fluctuating conditions and deadlines.
That the students also gained clearer senses of whether and how they might engage with opera in the future was just the icing on the cake, the last up-shot in a long and rewarding collaboration.
“In the end, it went as well as it possibly could have,” Germain said. “Everybody peaked at exactly the right time, and I think we were all proud of the result.” •
CIM ISSUES MAJOR UPDATES WITH LAUNCH OF ‘ORCHESTRA 2.0’
By Zachary Lewis
Conductor Carlos Kalmar walks on stage at Severance Music Center, where he led the CIM Orchestra in concert in September 2022. (Photo by Gus Chan)
The appointment of Carlos Kalmar last year was more than a coup for CIM. It was the beginning of a whole new era.
Along with vast experience on major stages around the world, Kalmar brought to CIM a bold vision of how best to prepare students for a life like his. The result? Orchestra 2.0, CIM’s new model of orchestral training.
Based on principles tested over time, the new program treats CIM students like the young professionals they are, simulating the environment many of them aspire to join. It also places orchestral playing squarely in the center of musical life at CIM, on par with CIM’s other forte, chamber music.
“I’m well aware it’s a huge change,” said Kalmar, director of orchestral studies at CIM and music director of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival. “But if we want to do this well and for CIM to be famous as an orchestra school, we need to do things differently.” The most important shift is arguably one of emphasis. Instead of an elective, students and faculty are now being asked to regard orchestral music as what it truly is: a requirement, a line of study no less critical to a young artist’s development than music theory, ear training or eurhythmics.
To that end, Kalmar, music director laureate of the Oregon Symphony, has encouraged his CIM colleagues to factor ensemble repertoire into their private lessons, to make sure all student orchestra members receive both expert guidance on the music they’re performing and sufficient time to practice it.
There’s also the matter of organization, of running the CIM Orchestra the way a professional orchestra runs. Near the top of Kalmar’s goals with Orchestra 2.0 is the patently conductor-like mission to get everyone on the same page, to make expectations and responsibilities abundantly clear.
No more wondering whether you’re playing in the orchestra this season. Going forward, all instrumentalists will be guaranteed and required to spend time each semester in at least one of the school’s two orchestras, nicknamed “Ernest” and “Bloch” in honor of CIM’s founder, or another group such as the New Music Ensemble or CIM Opera Theater. Vocalists may work in CIM’s new vocal chamber music program. Each group will have a separate schedule with rehearsals on a regular basis.
All students also will know at the start of each semester what they’re playing and whether they have any solos or other special duties. Those who aspire to be principals will have to audition for those seats, just like their professional role models.
Another critical piece of the 2.0 puzzle – in addition to when and how often the CIM Orchestra gathers – is what it plays. On that front, too, Kalmar has strong, clear views that differ markedly from those of his predecessors.
The temptation at a school orchestra would be to establish and cycle through a set of required works, the way a literature professor might issue a list of required reading. In that way, every student would graduate with, say, a Beethoven Six, Dvorák “New World,” and Mozart “Jupiter” under his or her belt.
That, though, isn’t how Kalmar thinks. He prioritizes style over specific works, selecting pieces by the era, genre, or other important factor they represent. This, he said, makes students more broadly capable and flexible, more ready to join a professional orchestra, where anything might be on the menu.
“I don’t teach pieces, as a general rule,” Kalmar said. “I teach style. I don’t go so much for the war-horses. When you a play a piece by any composer, you have a good idea of their style. It doesn’t matter so much what the piece is, exactly.” Mozart and Stravinsky, little in it qualifies as a chestnut.
The one possible exception are the symphonies of Brahms, which both orchestras are set to play in the program’s first season, under Kalmar’s belief in their singular importance. Also in the mix: a hearty helping of contemporary music, including works by CIM student composers.
The last and most visible change around Orchestra 2.0 regards location, where the orchestras perform.
Kalmar couldn’t have known when he arrived last year that CIM would soon form a partnership with The Cleveland Orchestra, one that would lead to the CIM Orchestra playing regularly at the worldrenowned Severance Music Center.
That, though, is exactly what happened. Now, through the partnership, Kalmar and his students get to perform in one of the most revered venues in the world not once or twice but seven times this season.
For the students, Kalmar said, playing at Severance is like going to finishing school. It’s the last major step in a long process of musical refinement, one that takes the shock of being on a great stage out of the audition or performance equation.
Indeed, in the reboot that is Orchestra 2.0, it may be the most significant feature.
“For a student orchestra to get to play regularly in the undeniably best hall in the US, that’s amazing,” Kalmar said. “I would say things have come together really nicely.” •
Conductor Carlos Kalmar, seen here leading the CIM Orchestra at Severance Music Center, is a driving force behind CIM’s new Orchestra 2.0 program. (Photo by Gus Chan)
