SVPDA Academy

Day Camp

One week:    $550 tuition

 

Residential Camp (lodging and dining on the OSU campus; evening activities will be offered)

One week:    $550 housing and dining fee + $550 tuition

 

Scholarships

A limited number of merit and needs based scholarships may be available to help offset tuition and housing costs.

2022 Artist Faculty

Jessica Lambert of Corvallis is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Zvi Zeitlin and members of the Cleveland String Quartet. Other major teachers include Alice Schoenfeld and Alexander Treger. Concertmaster of the Corvallis Symphony Orchestra since 2007, she is also the founding Artistic Director of the Oregon State University Chamber Music Workshop, an intensive quartet program held in Corvallis in July. She is a Core Musician performing on violin and viola with Chamber Music Amici, a chamber music series based in Eugene. Jessica is widely recognized as a teacher and maintains a private studio of violin and viola students. Her students have won regional and national competitions and have matriculated to the nation’s most prestigious conservatories and summer programs.

 

Dr. Alice Blankenship is the Concertmaster of Oregon Mozart Players, section violinist with Eugene Symphony, a member of the Oregon Bach Festival baroque and modern orchestras, and co-artistic director of microphilharmonic, a chamber music series at the Shedd Institute in Eugene, Oregon. She performs on baroque violin and directs the annual microphilharmonic baroque! concert on period instruments at the Shedd. She has been a guest baroque violinist with Portland Baroque Orchestra, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, and Santa Fe Pro Musica.

Dr Blankenship holds a DMA degree in violin performance and music history from the University of Oregon; a Certificaat of Early Music and Historical Performance Practice from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, The Netherlands; and a Master of Music degree from San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

 

 

Colin Pip Dixon is a violinist and composer originally from New York City. He studied, lived and worked in Paris, France for many years and has been based in Eugene, Oregon since 2017. He is co-artistic director of The Elsewhere Ensemble (www.ElsewhereEnsemble.com), a chamber group bringing together music, literature and theater. With the Elsewhere Ensemble he has produced, composed, and performed original works such as His Majesty, the Devil – a play with music (based on Dostoyevsky), Chekhov Triptych, The Happy Prince (Oscar Wilde), Letter to Brahms, Icarus Quartet, etc. in places such as New York City, Paris, Lyon, Brussels, Beirut, Montreal, Eugene and Portland Oregon, as well as in the Edinburgh and New York International Fringe Festivals, the Max International Music Festival in Belgium at the inauguration of Hammana Artist House in Hammana, Lebanon. For many years he worked closely as violinist, composer and music director with the French theater company Th  tre de l’Arc-en-Ciel (now Compagnie de la Premi re Seconde) touring extensively throughout France, Belgium and Switzerland. As a chamber musician, after completing his undergraduate studies, he was invited on full scholarship to study and perform at The European Mozart Academy in Poland. In Eugene he performs frequently with many local groups such as the Eugene Symphony, Eugene Opera, microphilharmonic, Chamber Music Amici and Oregon Mozart Players. He has taught in the French conservatories of Reims, Versailles, Orsay and at the Great Neck Conservatory in New York. He is also a guild certified Feldenkrais Method  practitioner and has been giving workshops on body awareness for musicians for over15 years in Europe and the US, both privately and in many conservatories and Universities (University of Oregon, Pacific University, Stony Brook University), as well as at ASTA, ORASTA and OMEA conferences, and weekly at Virtuosity.Online.

 

Originally from Paris, Arnaud Ghillebaert has performed with The Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields (Sir Neville Marriner) and the London Symphony Orchestra. He toured Europe for two summers with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under the baton of Sir Colin Davis and Herbert Blomstedt in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall in London or the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, was a member of the New Haven Symphony (2015-2019) and plays with the Artosphere Festival Orchestra in the summer since 2013 (Corrado Rovaris, musical director). A member of the Southbank Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra in England for one year, he appeared in London’s National Theatre production of Tom Stoppard’s and Andre Previn’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. A founding member of the Elsewhere Ensemble, in 2013 he created the role of the Shadow in His Majesty the Devil - a play with music. The show, inspired by Dostoyevsky, was performed at 59E59 Theaters in New York City, FringeNYC, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. A dedicated chamber musician, he frequently plays alongside the University of Oregon music faculty. Recent performances include recitals with pianists Anton Nel and Kelly Kuo; he was invited to perform at the Louis Moreau Institute in New Orleans and in the “Starry Nights” music series at the Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University alongside Colin Carr, Eugene Drucker (Emerson String Quartet) and Nick Cords (Silkroad Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider). He received his Masters from the Royal College of Music in London and completed his Doctorate in Violin and Viola performance at Stony Brook University in 2016. He has been the viola instructor at the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance (Eugene, OR) since Fall 2017. Since arriving in Oregon he has performed in the Oregon Bach Festival, is the principal violist of the Oregon Mozart Players, and has been playing concerts and performances with Chamber Music Amici, Microphilharmonic, Eugene Opera and the Eugene Symphony (viola and violin section).

 

Maria Larionoff has served on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Music and has been a guest Artist-in-Residence at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. She has taught at the Round Top Festival in Texas and the Interlochen Arts Academy and currently teaches an orchestra repertoire class and chamber music at the Seattle Conservatory of Music.

Ms. Larionoff’s versatility as a violist as well a violinist has led to invitations at many chamber music festivals, including the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Seattle International Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Marrowstone Music Festival, Chautauqua and the Vetta series in Vancouver, BC. She has collaborated in chamber music concerts with many distinguished artists including Emanuel Ax, Lynn Harrell, Steven Staryk, Jamie Laredo, and Glenn Dicterow.

In 2001, Ms. Larionoff and her husband, doublebassist Barry Lieberman, founded The American String Project, a conductorless string orchestra made up of Concertmasters and soloists from around the world. The group received great critical acclaim both for their annual performances at Benaroya Hall, as well as for their numerous recordings. In 2018 Ms. Larionoff was appointed Artistic Director of the String Orchestra of the Rockies, and has led the orchestra in a tour of Washington, expanded their student outreach programs and launched free outdoor parks concerts in the summer months.

 

Anne Ridlington is a Corvallis native who started her musical studies early, first taking violin lessons with Peg Varvel and Aida Baker, and later cello, with Nancy Sowdon and Hamilton Cheifetz of Portland. She spent many years playing in local youth orchestras under the direction of Ms. Sowdon, Penelope Wolff, and Charles Creighton.

Ms. Ridlington earned her Bachelor of Music in cello performance at Indiana University School of Music, where she studied primarily with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi but also took lessons with Helga Winold, Emilio Colón, and Janos Starker. She spent a year playing in the Lübeck Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany, and a year in Santa Barbara, California, playing on the sidewalk for tourist dollars. Since returning to Corvallis, Ms. Ridlington has taught in the Elementary Strings Program and at the Corvallis Waldorf School and gives private lessons. Anne is a member of the Corvallis-OSU Symphony, the Eugene Symphony, where she is Principal Cello, and the Oregon Mozart Players. She often performs with the Corvallis Repertory Singers. In May 2010 Anne performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Rachelle McCabe, Jessica Lambert, and the Corvallis-OSU Symphony.

 

Noah Seitz, a Corvallis native, completed his Bachelors Degree in Cello Performance at the UMKC Conservatory of Music in 2001. He then returned to Oregon as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Oregon where he won the Music School 2003 Concerto Competition, performing Ernest Bloch's "Schelomo" Hebraic Rhapsody. He has participated in Master classes with Jeffrey Solo, Steven Isserlis, Zara Nelsova, The Tang Quartet, Ying Quartet, Emerson Quartet and St. Lawrence Quartet. Since 2003, he and his family have been residents of Keizer. He continues to teach in the Salem/Keizer area, and performs regularly with his wife, pianist Sara Greenleaf, the OSU Symphony, the Eugene Symphony, the Camerata Musica Chamber Music Series in Salem, Chintimini Chamber Music Festival in Corvallis, Porland Cello Project, and various Oregon ensembles. Noah is adjunct professor of cello at Pacific University, where he coaches string quartets, and sits principal in the university orchestra. Noah went to University of North Texas, University of Missouri Kansas City, and the University of Oregon, where he was a Graduate Teaching Fellow. He studied with Carter Enyeart (UNT and UMKC) and with Steve Pologe (University of Oregon). He was a Clinician at the Kansas City Cello Clinic 1999-2002.

Noah and his wife, Sara, have two musical daughters, Lilla and Clara. His hobbies include fishing, golfing, flying model (and real when he gets the chance) airplanes, and spending time with his huge extended family.

 

George Thomson has enjoyed a multi-faceted career. Formerly a busy freelance musician and conductor in the San Francisco Bay Area, he was a member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the American Bach Soloists; from 1996 to 2005 he was Principal Violist of the Carmel Bach Festival, where he was a member of the Festival String Quartet. He was Music Director of the San Francisco-based new music ensemble EARPLAY, Associate Conductor of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra. As an educator, he was for eleven years the Music Director of the award-winning Virtuoso Program at San Domenico School in San Anselmo, California, before moving to Oregon in 2010. He currently lives and teaches in Salem.

 

Application Recordings

• Each application must be accompanied by an audition recording. Entry level to the workshop is Suzuki Book 4 or equivalent.

Teacher Recommendation Form

• Intermediate Students
• Two 2 octave or 3 octave scales (one major and one minor) and one piece; total audition time not to exceed 10 minutes.
• Advanced Students
• Two 3 octave or 4 octave scales (one major and one minor) and two contrasting pieces; not to exceed 12 minutes.

 

Piano accompaniment is not required.

Audition recordings may be audio or video.

Applicants must submit a completed teacher recommendation form with registration.