Heartland Chamber Music Academy will be joining forces with Stringendo Summer Camp in 2009!
UMKC is proud to host a Chamber Music Festival featuring faculty and clinicians from both Stringendo and Heartland. The Festival will take place July 18 - 28, 2009.
Click here for more information.
Heartland Chamber Music Academy was founded in the summer of 2001 to provide opportunities for young musicians to study and perform chamber music in a stimulating and supportive environment. Every summer, a two-week program is held in which students receive daily chamber music coaching, theory and music history instruction, weekly private lessons, chamber orchestra and solo opportunities, daily practice time, and weekly student performances. Since its inception, Heartland Chamber Music Academy has reached hundreds of students from Johnson, Jackson, Platte and Wyandotte counties. Although some of the area's most talented students attend the Academy, many students comment that this is their first exposure to chamber music. Regardless of their experience, students develop knowledge and skill in chamber music repertoire, playing technique, teamwork, and artistic interpretation. From the interaction and communication experiences necessary for successful chamber music performances, the musicians develop skills that support artistic and academic achievement, building a foundation for future success in any field.
Heartland Chamber Music Academy Faculty Biographies
Russian violinist, LARISA ELISHA, has distinguished herself as an international soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue, having performed and taught extensively throughout Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, and most recently, the United States. Continuing in the tradition of the great Russian violinist, David Oistrakh, she holds a Bachelor’s degree with honors and a Master’s degree in music from the Academy of Music in Minsk, Belarus, where she was a student and assistant of Professor Olga Parchomienko. Dr. Elisha was Violin Professor at the Academy of Music in Wroclaw, Poland, where she had received her Doctorate degree. Ms. Elisha was the Concertmaster of the Witold Lutoslawski State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, the Principal Violinist of the Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra, as well as Director and First Violinist of the Wratislavia String Quartet in Wroclaw (Breslau), Poland. Ms. Elisha has performed recitals at the festivals of Chamber Music in Belarus, International Festival Vratislavia Cantans in Wroclaw (Poland), Contemporary Music Festival Musica Polonica Nova, Draeseke’s Festival in Germany, Gioventi Muiscale d’Italia, Wieniawski’s Festival in Poland, and Mozart’s Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her solo performances of the Shostakovich Violin concerto with the Wroclaw and Koszalin Symphony Orchestras, as well as solo recitals in Krakow and at the Wieniawski Festival in Szczawno Zdroj, drew critical acclaim. Ms. Elisha has also performed at the Koncertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam, Holland; Warsaw National Philharmony Hall; and Karajan Hall in Berlin, Germany, and has made numerous compact disc, TV, and radio recordings.
VICTORIA OLSON, viola, received a Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University and a Master of Music degree from the University of Colorado where she was a teaching assistant to Denes Koromzay of the Hungarian Quartet. Ms. Olson has extensive chamber music experience including performances as violist with the William Jewell Trio, Summerfest, Rocky Ridge Music Center and over 100 school performances with the Colorado Camerata String Quartet sponsored by the Denver chapter of Young Audiences. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Tennessee and has held principal positions with the Colorado Springs Symphony, Breckenridge Music Institute and the Colorado Ballet Orchestra. She also performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Music Festival. Ms. Olson was the viola instructor at William Jewell College for ten years and continues to maintain a private studio. She is co-principal with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and is the founding Artistic Director of the Heartland Chamber Music Academy.
LAWRENCE FIGG, cello, received his bachelor's degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and was a semi-finalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1986. He lived in Paris for five years doing extensive chamber music and solo performances as well as studio work for French radio and television. While in Paris, he was invited to play a season with Pierre Boulez's modern music ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain. He then moved to Bordeaux where he was a member of the Orchestra National Bordeaux Aquitaine for nine years, the last five serving as Principal Cellist. Mr. Figg is currently a member of the Kansas City Symphony and co-principal cellist with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.
MARY POSSES (B.A., M.M., M.M.A., D.M.A., Yale University) has appeared throughout the U.S. in solo, orchestral, and chamber concerts, including performances in New York’s Tully Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum; has been an invited performer and speaker at many National Flute Conventions; and is a sought-after competition adjudicator. Since joining the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance faculty in 1977, she has received two of the University’s awards for outstanding teaching and has developed a Flute studio with a national reputation for excellence. Her students are frequent winners and finalists in major local, regional, and national competitions; are awarded numerous prestigious grants; regularly win places for further study in other leading music programs and top summer festivals; and enter highly successful music careers. Dr. Posses also serves as a Coordinator of the Conservatory’s student chamber music program and is Coach of the UMKC Gradate Fellowship Woodwind Quintet. In 2007, she spent two weeks as an invited guest artist at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, where she performed and gave flute and chamber music master classes. Actively involved in contemporary music, she has premiered works for flute by such leading American composers as James Mobberley, Harvey Sollberger, and Yehudi Wyner. Dr. Posses studied with Thomas Nyfenger; her other teachers include Julius Baker, Samuel Baron, Frank Bowen, Erich Graf, and Marcel Moyse.
PAUL HIGDON (Music Theory / Music History) is an assistant professor of music at St. Louis Community College where he coordinates the music department at the Florissant Valley campus. In 1998, he earned a doctorate and was nominated the following year by the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music for the prestigious Dissertation of the Year award. A frequent recitalist, Higdon has played in many parts of the Midwest as well as Malaysia.
ROBERT OLSON (Orchestra) earned degrees from Northern Illinois, Michigan State and the University of Washington and had further study at the Vienna Hochschule for Music as a recipient of the coveted Fulbright Scholarship. In addition to the two orchestras and opera program he conducts at UMKC, he is also the conductor for the Kansas City Ballet, the Longmont Symphony (Colorado), and is the Artistic Director and conductor of the Colorado Mahlerfest, which has achieved international praise through his critically acclaimed CD’s and performances.
Selected student ensembles from the Chamber Music Saturdays program and from the Summer Academy perform in the community in various settings, including nursing homes, community centers, and businesses. By sharing their talents, they not only gain more performance opportunities but also increase awareness and appreciation for chamber music by reaching hundreds of listeners within the community.
Chamber Music refers to music written for small groups of musicians performed without a conductor. In contrast to symphonies and operas heard in concert halls, chamber music was originally written to be performed in small, intimate settings. In addition to traditional ensembles such as string quartets and woodwind quintets, composers have written thousands of compositions for countless combinations of instruments.
The Heartland Chamber Players, comprised of faculty and guest artists, present a series of chamber music concerts throughout the year in private homes in the Kansas City area, thus offering the listener the opportunity to appreciate live chamber music in its intended setting. Hosting a concert can be a way to entertain your friends in addition to making a contribution to Heartland Chamber Music. For more information on opportunities available with the Heartland Chamber Music Academy, contact: Vicki Olson, Artistic/Executive Director, olsonvick@yahoo.com or Mara Gibson, Director of The Community Music and Dance Academy, gibsonmb@umkc.edu.
Heartland Chamber Music Academy is funded in part by the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation, Richard J. Stern Foundation, Miller and Jeannette Nichols Foundation, Shirley and Barnett Helzberg, Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund, Louis and Frances Swinken Supporting Foundation, Missouri Arts Council and Nephila.
