On Saturday, February 27, a small group of Potomac Arts Academy string students and George Mason University undergraduate students gathered for a masterclass taught by four members of the YOA Orchestra of the Americas Global Leaders program.
Ten-year-old Mikaela started the masterclass by performing the Martini Gavotte from Suzuki Book 3 for Luciana Arraes.
Luciana reminded us that a gavotte is a dance, and worked with Mikaela’s bow arm to help the music sound more like dance steps. The first two notes, which are upbeats, lead to the third, which is a downbeat. She helped Mikaela find more flexibility in her bow hand and flick her wrist to lift the bow off the string for a lighter sound.
The Martini Gavotte, which is mostly in G Major, has a few accidentals which are always tricky for students to remember. Luciana pointed out how special these notes are, and that the changing harmonies give the performer the opportunity to be extra expressive.
The next performer was eighteen-year-old Marina, who performed the exposition of the Kabalevsky Violin Concerto. She was coached by Jessy Dube, who worked with her on some unconventional ways to get a bigger sound and find more resonance. Violinists are used to doing sophisticated coordination with their arms, but using the lower half of the body is unfamiliar. Jessy encouraged Marina to ground her feet firmly, and to use her hips and legs to create resistance to push and pull sound out of the instrument. The trick, Jessy explained, is to move in the same direction as your bow when you want resonance, and to move in the opposite direction when you want a sustained sound.
The third performer was freshman viola student Sophie, who studies with Philippe Chao at George Mason University. She played the slow movement of a viola concerto for Gabriel Polycarpo, who worked with her on focusing her musical energy and on refining her vibrato. Gabriel said that music is a succession of energy, and that the preparatory motion BEFORE playing helps to concentrate the performer’s energy. He also had her practice doing vibrato without her thumb on the instrument to feel more freedom, especially in her fourth finger.
Finally Andrew, a senior at George Mason University and a student of John Kilkenny,performed an etude on snare drum for percussionist Marlene Sanchez. One often thinks purely of rhythm when it comes to percussion, but rhythm was the thing Marlene focused the least on when working with him. She helped him to think musically, in long phrases. She also brought attention to the breath: how when one breathes in the rests, the breath should be in time and in character with the dynamics and the mood of the piece. One other interesting tip she gave him was to think of every note having its own personality.
After the students finished performing, Marlene, Jessy, Gabriel, and Luciana performed a piece for the audience and led a discussion about their experiences as professional musicians and as members of the YOA Orchestra of the Americas Global Leaders program.
You can learn more about the YOA Orchestra of the Americas at their website.
To find out more about private music lessons at Potomac Arts Academy, visit our Private Lessons page.