Music with Altitude!
“The Roaring Twenties–Take Two!” The Berkshire High Peaks Festival is July 20 – July 31, 2022 in-person on the Berkshire School campus in Sheffield, MA in the beautiful and culturally dynamic Berkshire Hills.
Soar!
Bring your artistry to new heights at the Berkshire High Peaks Festival.
Announcing the 2022 Berkshire High Peaks Festival for Outstanding Young Musicians! For the13th year, an international group of strings, pianists and vocalists will converge for intensive study with distinguished faculty. Each participant will receive private lessons, join in master classes by our faculty and guests, be coached as part of a performing ensemble, and enjoy discussions and workshops by prominent composers, renowned pedagogues and notable figures in the music world who will help center us as we resume our preparations for professional lives.
What to Expect
In addition to enjoying the pillars of our Western cannon (Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, etc. ) in individual and in chamber music repertoire, we’ll turn the spotlight this summer on the Roaring Twenties—the 1920s and our own present decade—and look at the frenzy of artistic activity that took place in Berlin, Paris and New York.
Students and faculty will have opportunities to explore works by Poulenc, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Zemlinsky, Moszkowsky, the Jazz craze in Europe, the cabaret songs of Kurt Weill, and of course, back home, the legacies of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber, Arnold Schoenberg, Amy Beach, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Leo Ornstein, among many others who were active at this time and in these cultural centers. We’ll also take a look at works that were inspired by the solitude, technology and resourcefulness that arose during the pandemic.
Performance Opportunities
We are planning performance opportunities, both on the beautiful Berkshire School campus as well as in various Berkshire and Hudson Valley venues. High Peaks musicians have appeared in popular concert locations, including the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA; Orpheum Theater in Tannersville, NY; Basilica Hudson; the New York State Museum in Albany; Bridge Street Theater in Catskill, NY; the Carey Institute for Global Good in Rensselaerville, NY, and many others.
Most of all, we look forward to the togetherness, atmosphere of friendship and supportive spirit that our festival is noted for, and to the ensemble possibilities for chamber music that were so difficult during the peak of COVID.
Our 2022 faculty includes these distinguished artists:
Violinists Irina Muresanu (University of Maryland) and Peter Zazofsky (Boston University)
Violists Daniel Panner (Mannes School) and Michael Strauss (Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University)
Pianists Annie Brooks (Wingate University), Gila Goldstein (Longy School of Music) and Alexander Shtarkman (Peabody Conservatory)
Soprano Danielle Talamantes (Metropolitan Opera) and bass baritone Kerry Wilkerson (George Mason University)
Cellists Yehuda Hanani (Mannes School), Jeffrey Zeigler (Director of Mannes Prep; former member of Kronos Quartet); Diego Fainguersch (Institute of Art at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires); and Sae Rom Kwon (Kang-Nam University, Korea)
Guitarist Eliot Fisk (New England Conservatory)