ORTHODOX MUSIC MASTERCLASS
FOR COMPOSERS AND CONDUCTORS
JUNE 20-23, 2019
THE SOCIETY OF SAINT ROMANOS THE MELODIST
announces a unique workshop
for composers to develop an individual style with chant-based or freely-composed works that is clear in compositional intent & suited for liturgical use and
for conductors to develop fundamentals of manual technique, musicianship & analytic skills, and an expressive & inspiring manner of conducting.
REALIZE YOUR CREATIVE AND LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL AS
A COMPOSER AND/OR CONDUCTOR!
FEATURING:
° Pan-Orthodox orientation;
° Distinguished international faculty;
° Multi-lingual approach with English as central language;
° Individualized instruction at all levels–beginner to advanced;
° Divine Services celebrated with newly-composed music;
° Intensive training in score analysis and preparation;
° Pre-event mentoring and musicianship training;
° Training in Dalcroze Eurhythmics;
° Composer-conductor forums;
• Extended podium time;
° Professional choir;
° Masterclass sessions & hotel 10 minutes from O'Hare Airport;
° A limited number of available home stays for cost reduction;
° Central US location in a major city; and
° Affordable tuition.
SIMPLE 3-STEP ONLINE REGISTRATION
In order to provide more focused and intensive training in the various areas of study and to add the composer track, what was originally The PaTRAM Institute Summer Academy for Conductors & Singers has now been separated into two distinct programs which will hold sessions in two venues on different weekends.
The Orthodox Music Masterclass for Composers & Choir Directors will convene in Chicago from June 20 thru 23. Faculty: Dr. Peter Jermihov, Dr. Tamara Petijevic, Dr. Irina Riazanova, Dr. Kurt Sander, Dr. Matthew Arndt, Kristen Regester, Melita Zdravkovic & Timothy Morrow.
COMPOSERS & CONDUCTORS are invited to register here:
https://www.societyromanos.org/description
OR ADDRESS QUESTIONS TO:
The PaTRAM Institute Singers' Summer Academy will take place in Howell, New Jersey from June 27 thru 30. Faculty: Maestro Vladimir Gorbik, Maestro Benedict Sheehan, Laryssa Doohovskoy, Dr. Nicholas Reeves, Richard Barrett & Talia-Maria Sheehan.
SINGERS are invited to register here:
https://patraminstitute.org/singers-summer-academy-2019-registration/
VENUE
CONDUCTING FACULTY
DR. PETER JERMIHOV
Born in Chicago of Russian-émigré parents, Peter Jermihov is an American conductor with Russian roots. A student of legendary, master teacher–Il'ya Musin, he has cultivated a versatile career by combining professional conducting engagements with teaching appointments, choral with orchestral conducting, and music-making with research. An internationally recognized specialist in Orthodox liturgical music, Jermihov is also a devoted proponent of East-West cultural exchange. He has led an initiative to commission and premiere new compositions from prominent Orthodox composers including Ivan Moody, Kurt Sander, Nazo Zakkak, and Zoran Mulic. Jermihov’s doctoral dissertation was dedicated to Georgy Sviridov, and he continues to champion the music of this major composer in the West.
During his formative years, Jermihov studied conducting under such renowned choral masters as Eric Erickson of Sweden, Vladimir Minin of Russia, and Helmuth Rilling of Germany. He was invited to the Tanglewood Music Center under Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa as a Conducting Fellow and to the American Orchestra League’s Conducting Seminars under Kurt Masur and Leonard Slatkin as an Active Participant. He had the privilege of serving as Robert Shaw and Vladimir Minin’s assistant in preparing Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem at the 2nd World Symposium on Choral Music in Stockholm. Jermihov has served as director of choral and orchestral activities at several major state universities and private colleges. His articles and editions of choral music appear in the Choral Journal, International Federation of Choral Music Journal, Musica Russica, Inc., PSALM Music Press, and numerous other publications. He is Artistic Director of The PaTRAM Institute Singers and The St. Romanos Cappella.
DR. TAMARA PETIJEVIC
DR. IRINA JERMIHOV
COMPOSITION & MUSICIANSHIP FACULTY
Dr. Kurt Sander
Kurt Sander's compositions have been performed in twelve countries on four different continents. Much of his choral and instrumental work takes its inspiration from the sublime dimensions of the Eastern Orthodox faith and its rich artistic traditions.
While his record of work includes a variety of contemporary concert pieces, his energies are heavily focused on the composition of Orthodox choral music and research on the aesthetics of Orthodox creativity.
His sacred choral work has been sung by many fine performing ensemble throughout the world including Cappella Romana, the Choir "Kastalsky," the Cincinnati Camerata, the Cantata Singers of Ottawa, the St. Romanos Cappella, the Clarion Choir, Archangel Voices, and the PaTRAM Institute Singers. It has also been featured at the CREDO International Festival of Orthodox Choral Music by the Orthodox Singers. In 2017, the Patriarch Tikhon Russian-American Music Institute commissioned the composition of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom which was recorded in August 2017 and will be released under the Reference Recording label in early 2019.
Sander has also acquired notoriety for his chamber and orchestral writing. He was recently named a finalist in the American Prize for his song cycle Ella's Song about the life of St. Elizabeth, Grand Duchess of Russia. Other instrumental works have been performed by the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, the Brasov Philharmonic (Romania), the Pleven Philharmonic (Bulgaria) and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Synchronia, the Corbett Trio, the Solaris Wind Quintet, and the St. Petersburg Quartet.
Sander also is an active presenter and author. His research is directed toward the relationships between Orthodox iconography and music, and the unique traditions that inform the creative process for the artist and composer, more specifically, the work of contemporary Orthodox composer Arvo Pärt.
Sander currently serves as Professor of Music and Coordinator of Music Theory and Composition at Northern Kentucky University. He holds degrees in composition from Northwestern University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and Cleveland State University. His teachers include Bain Murray, William Karlins, Alan Stout, Rudolph Bubalo, Andrew Imbrie, and Alan Sapp.
DR. MATTHEW ARNDT
Matthew Arndt is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Iowa and a choir leader at St. Raphael Orthodox Church in Iowa City. He has also taught composition and music theory at Mercer University and Lawrence University. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Theory with a double minor in Music Composition and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, an M.M. in Music Composition from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a B.A. with honors in Music Composition from Lewis & Clark College. At the University of Colorado at Boulder, he studied with Orthodox composer Richard Toensing of blessed memory, and at Lewis & Clark College he studied with composer Robert Kyr. From his conversion to Orthodoxy in 2009 until recently, Arndt remained mostly compositionally silent while absorbing church music and studying music theory. He researches the application of insights from the history of music theory to music theory pedagogy, analysis, and criticism. He also studies technical aspects of Georgian chant and has arranged Georgian chant for the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom into English. He is the author of The Musical Thought and Spiritual Lives of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg (Routledge, 2018) and several articles. Having found a mature voice, Arndt has recently returned to composition, primarily of church music and chamber music dedicated to his wife. His music is influenced by Georgian chant, Byzantine chant, Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Theolonius Monk, Olivier Messiaen, Jacques Ibert, Arvo Pärt, and others.
Arndt collaborated with five other Orthodox composers, including Richard Toensing and Kurt Sander, on Heaven and Earth: A Song of Creation (a collaborative setting of Psalm 103), premiered by Cappella Romana in October 2018. For this occasion, he also composed a setting of the Jesus Prayer. Of these works, Matthew Neil Andrews for Oregon ArtsWatch writes: “Arndt’s The Jesus Prayer, closing the first half, came at me out of nowhere, right out of the gate crying a big Ligeti-esque wall-of-sound chord on ‘Lord!’ and proceeding directly to fluctuating chromatic micropolyphony, occasionally resolving to lightly seasoned fifths before shifting back into 2001 overdrive, the text looping obsessively, cycling through iterations of ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ texture constantly changing, from vibrating clusters and close dissonant harmonies down to superquiet unisons. If I’d heard this in Seattle the previous night, I would have driven down here today just to hear this one piece again. Later, Arndt’s setting of his section of Heaven and Earth, ‘There is the sea, great and wide,’ used similarly dense harmonies to evoke ‘creeping things without number, living creatures small and great.’”
Staff accompanists
Melita zdravkovic
Melita Zdravkovic was born in Nis, Serbia in 1988. She holds degrees in both Music Education and Piano Performance. She graduated in 2010 in the class of Aleksandar Serdar at the Univeristy of Nis – Faculty of Arts. In 2011, she received her Master’s Degree in Piano Performance in Nis, Serbia.
In the course of her education, Melita won dozens of competitions in Serbia and throughout Europe, such as the competition in Turin, Italy, in 2008, where she won the first prize with her twin sister in four hands, and the special award for the premiere performance of Skalamerija written for her and her sister by the composer Dragana Velickovic.
Melita was a winner of numerous scholarships for young artists. She worked in Music Schools and Academies as a piano teacher and an accompanist around Serbia and Kosovo since the age of 17.
Since 2011, Melita has been working with the Steinway Artist Cosmo Buono in New York, where she received a scholarship that enabled her to record her first solo CD in New Jersey, and the opportunity to hold concerts in Chicago and Boston and at prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall and Steinway Hall in New York City.
Melita is the winner of the first Claudette Sorel Scholarship honoring the contributions of women performers to the world of classical music and offered through The Alexander & Buono Foundation in New York City.
Currently, Melita is completing her second Master’s Degree in Piano Pedagogy at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, where she has a full scholarship. She is also serving as a staff accompanist at Northwestern University in Evanston and works as a piano teacher at Metropolis School of the Performing Arts in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
timothy morrow
Timothy Morrow is an American born pianist and composer. Born in 1999, he is currently a sophomore at Westminster Choir College studying piano and composition. There he has sung in choirs including the Westminster Chapel Choir, and Schola Cantorum. He also sings and accompanies the Grammy nominated Westminster Kantorei, an ensemble focusing on early music. He is also a cellist in numerous orchestras affiliated with the Westminster Conservatory and Princeton University.
Timothy's music career has taken him far and wide, performing in concerts and competitions all throughout Europe, most notably at the 2013 Cremona International Music Festival in Cremona, Italy. He has also performed in places such as Carnegie Hall, NJPAC, Steinway Hall, and David Geffen Hall. In January of 2019, he will also participate in the Texas tour of the prestigious Westminster Choir.
Currently, he lives in New Jersey with his loving family.
This event is supported, in part, by generous
in-kind and monetary donations from
The Holy Resurrection Serbian
Orthodox Cathedral,
Ancient Faith Radio,
The PaTRAM Institute,
and numerous local vendors,
families, and individuals.