Intermountain Suzuki String Institute

Another year, another wonderful week of Suzuki camp at Juan Diego High School.  Raef and Zach continue to progress in their musical studies and Intermountain Suzuki String Institute is an integral part of their development.  I am always amazed at the growth I see after just one week of playing. It is fantastic.

Raef started the week before because he was able to play in the Chamber Days. It started on Thursday, June 13 and was three days of intense chamber training. He played in a string quartet with Emma T., Anna R. and Thomas, the cello player. This go around Raef was the oldest. And he did fantastic. They worked on a rather difficult Beethoven piece (Op. 18 No. 2 4th Movement) and I was so amazed when I heard the final product. 

Then on Monday we started camp.  It was the 35th anniversary of ISSI and they decided to perform an original piece by Michael McLean. It was 700+ students playing in the auditorium. It was quite the spectacle and it took all week, with lots of hard work, to pull it off.

Zach had 5 great classes: Performance (Solomon), Master Class (Johansen), Technique (Meyer), Chamber (Johnson), Orchestra (Becker).  His master class teacher focused on his head and holding the violin correctly. He tends to slump down when he plays.  It is something he is going to have to keep working on until it becomes second-nature.

Raef's schedule looked like this: Chamber (Waters), Technique (Steun-Walker), Repertoire (Richardson), Orchestra (Bayless), and Master Class (Smale).

Raef really loved his repertoire teacher Robert Richardson. Robert would let Raef play lots of harmonies and even taught him some new ones. He had a lot of nice things to say about Raef which made me smile. Raef is such a special kid and quite a talented violist.

This is Zach with his chamber teacher Matt Johnson. Zach got to play first violin and he just loved it. I think this was his favorite class.  They performed a Rondo by Mozart and it was quite lovely. Zach is a very confident performer.

This is Zach's performance teacher Nicolette Solomon. She is from South Africa and it did not take her long to learn Zach's name.

We look forward to another year of ISSI.