Varna Music Academy: Workshops and Festivals

Conducting Workshops and Music Festivals

Varna International conducting workshops provide conductors of all levels with an excellent opportunity to advance and refine their conducting skills under the tutelage of great conductors and teachers. Varna International Conducting Workshops help each conductor take his or her conducting to the next level in a supportive collaborative environment.

Choose a Workshop or
Festival now!

Conducting Workshops
Summer 2010

International Music Festivals
Summer 2010

The workshops offer private detailed score study sessions with the faculty and a pianist in order to allow the participating conductors and the faculty sufficient time to immerse themselves in the music and to work on challenging spots which the scores present. The score study sessions focus on conducting technique, interpretation and analysis.

All Varna International Conducting Workshops offer ample podium time: each conductor will receive minimum 15 minutes of podium time during each of the daily rehearsals with the festival choir and orchestra.

Our highly trained clinicians provide maximum individual attention to all conducting participants during the private conducting sessions and the evening rehearsals with the choir and orchestra.

Varna International Choral and Orchestral Conducting Workshops provide a professional philharmonic orchestra and a local host choir, pre-rehearsed on major choral works. The festival orchestra consists of instrumentalists from professional orchestras in the USA and Bulgaria. Maestro Danail Rachev will have an individual rehearsal with the orchestra prior to the rehearsals with the festival conductors.

The festival international choir is made up of singers from The Representative Varna Municipal Chorus “Morski Zvutsi” and guest choirs from the USA.

Varna International Winter Orchestral Conducting Workshops provide conductors with the opportunity to work with a chamber orchestra on a variety of literature and to have significant podium time on all pieces. The Winter Choral Workshops focus on Russian and Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox, folk and Classical choral music for mixed choirs.

The final performance is videotaped with professional video and sound to DVD which is available for purchase.

Vocal Master Classes:
Singers who participate at the conducting workshops and international festivals will join the festival choir during rehearsals and the final performances of the featured work. Additionally, voice majors will participate in Vocal Master Classes taught by prominent European and American vocal artists. The master classes will focus on vocal technique, tone quality, artistic musical interpretation and stage presence.

Each participant would come with a preliminary prepared vocal work (aria or art song). Selected singers will perform in a public concert during the festival.

Clinicians:

Kathleen Sasnett, Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera, Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College
Kathleen Sasnett directs Opera Workshop, Sunderman Opera Studio, and teaches applied voice. A former Miss Washington, and top ten finalist in the Miss America Pageant, Kathleen has a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Vocal Performance and has performed leading operatic roles in America, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. As a Seattle Opera Young Artist, Kathleen performed over 15 roles in three years to standing ovations, including Liu, Rosalinda, Vitellia, Butterfly, Maddalena, Leonora, and Isolde.
Read more...

Tina Milhorn Stallard, Assistant Professor of Voice, School of Music, University of South Carolina
Active as a concert artist, soprano Tina Milhorn Stallard has performed solos in works such as Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Haydn's The Creation, Bach's St. John Passion, Poulenc's Gloria and Handel's Messiah.Most recently, Stallard appeared as Margaret Johnson in Opera at USC’s production of The Light in the Piazz. Her opera credits include roles in Cosi fan tutte, Die Fledermaus, Little Women, Hansel and Gretel, The Crucible and the Italian premiere of Casanova's Homecoming. She has sung with Opera Omaha, Central City Opera, Opera Theatre of Lucca (Italy), Cincinnati Opera, Kentucky Opera and he Palmetto Opera. As part of the cultural prelude to the 2008 Summer Olympics, Stallard performed the soprano solos in Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and members of the Beijing National Ballet Orchestra. A frequent recitalist, Stallard has presented programs in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, New York Indiana, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee and throughout South Carolina.
Read more...

Instrumental Master Classes:
Instrumentalists who participate at the conducting workshops and international festivals will join the festival orchestra during rehearsals and the final performances of the featured work. Additionally, instrumentalists will participate in Instrumental Master Classes conducted by renowned Bulgarian and USA professors.

Clinicians:

Danail Rachev, Orchestral Conductor
Danail Rachev graduated the State Musical Academy in Sofia with degrees in orchestral and choral conducting, and the Peabody Conservatory, on a full scholarship, in 2001. He studied under Gustav Meier, Michael Tilson Thomas, Vassil Kazandjiev, David Zinman, and Leonard Slatkin. He is currently serving as the Music Director of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, OR and the Assistant Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, PA. Read more...