Music Music All The Time: Summer Music Festivals All In One Not-Boring List!

Okay, we know that it's only Autumn, that wondrous season where the trees are naked, drizzly and depressing days become the norm, and Daylight Savings ensures that we are suddenly catapulted into complete darkness at 4:00 PM.

Well, good news! It's time to think about summer music festivals! Now you can bask in the thoughts of warm, music-ey comfort that a gorgeous summer festival affords, the hours of peaceful practice while a gentle breeze wafts the edges of the delicate pages of your Khachaturian concerto. And you can think all these thoughts while you make your audition recordings in the dark.

The University of Houston's Texas Music Festival provides all applicants with a scholarship covering tuition, room, and board (valued at $4,000)... so... that's awesome. This festival is open to ages 18-30.

Domaine Forget in Quebec has a number of sessions throughout the summer. Information will be up on their website by the end of November.

The Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina offers a number of programs for college and high-school. The age limit is 29, and specific programs include Orchestral Studies, Collaborative Piano, and Composition.

But what about those of us who are, shall we say, more seasoned? More life-experienced? Old?

This wine tastes like musical
maturity, with slight notes
of a mix CD from 2001.

Dig, if you will, Yellow Barn in Putney, Vermont. With no upward age limit, this small festival is open to individuals and pre-formed ensembles; So Percussion and eighth blackbird are alumni ensembles. Boston auditions are January 28-30.

Round Top is another option with only a minimum age limit: participants must be born before December 31, 1997. This orchestrally-based festival also provides full-tuition scholarships to all participants, so the fee is minimal.

The Aspen Music Festival in Colorado only has minimum age limits as well. This large program offers chamber music, orchestra, and opera theater.

Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine has 6-week and 3-week sessions, and no upper age limit. Pre-formed chamber ensembles are also invited to apply.

You mean... I GET money
to take lessons?!

"Okay," we hear you say. "What about those of us who are legit broke and cannot handle any fees of any kind?"

Might we suggest working for, rather than attending, a festival? Here is a short list of festivals that hire staff:

Interlochen Arts Camp in northern Michigan hires a full staff, from waterfront, counselors, production, front-of-house, and box office, to more specialized positions like collaborative piano, instructor of yoga, and kiln technician. Summer employees can study with faculty and perform on staff recitals.

Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, also in Michigan, hires staff for the summer. They also have a number of advanced graduate students serving as faculty. Staff and faculty play in a number of large, small, and jazz ensembles.

Boston University's own Tanglewood Institute has not only a number of RA positions open to college students who have finished their sophomore year (and older!), but institutes that are open to students until age 20. There are also paid internships available. Students can study with faculty, time permitting, and enjoy the Berkshires (a significant perk!).

Anybody out there enjoyed any of these festivals? Any that we should add to the list?

STRESS SERIES!: Experiment Number One: Throwing a Party

This week, to combat the slow, sneaky stress of the mid-semester stretch, we decided to throw a Halloween party. Why? Because Halloween is so awesome. Who is we? The Royal We. What is going on again?! A party.

Normally at the end of the week, we are basically non-functional.

Figure 1: Non-function.

The idea of throwing a party was daunting at best, and at worst caused our brains to explode. However, we bravely soldiered on with digging the box of Halloween goodies out of the basement and Googling "snarky costumes lol."

Half-way through decorating, we were hit with the tired stick (otherwise known as the "WHAT AM I DOING I HAVE TO STUDY!!!!!!11!!" stick") and ended up taking a twenty-minute coma nap under a cat.

Figure 2: Cat Nap is Incomplete Without Cat

This actually was an excellent idea and left us feeling very relaxed. Cat also seemed to enjoy it.

One stressful and perennial fear is that we will take Halloween more seriously than others. This manifests itself by involved costumes containing a large volume of fake blood, capes, and other props. While it seems like an awesome idea, it is awkward to be the only one at a party who looks thus.

Well. This is awkward.

So we spent some time coming up with a costume made up of one piece of paper that we could take off if necessary (IE, if we were the only ones in costume). We then spent some time making gross food (gross both because of the way it looked and because of the amount of butter present).

It's a HAND-MADE CAKE!!! Get it??!

Finally, we decorated the heck out of the apartment. Spiderwebs everywhere.

I... don't know how to feel.

The party came and went with plentiful food, fun, and ease. Clean-up only took about twenty minutes, and we filled the dishwasher ONLY ONCE (the true definition of a successful party).

While we were worried about costumes and decor, and while making food for an undetermined amount of people was a little difficult, we found this event to actually be moderately de-stressing.

DE-STRESS SCORE: 6/10

Surprisingly, after we were done cleaning up and had had a good night's sleep, we were refreshed because the party broke up the monotony of the weekly homework routine. It was nice to prioritize hanging out with friends, eating nasty, buttery food, and putting spiderwebs on the cat.

I'm still here.

We would definitely recommend taking a break to spend time with friends during this crazy season. Lucky for you, Halloween isn't over! Grab a vat of fake blood and enjoy the most wonderful season of the year.