Photo Courtesy of Russell Gates
Senior Russell Gates plays in New Orleans.
Tyler Horningr/Collegian
Junior Kristen Hoffman traveled from Michigan to England to Vermont.
Tyler Horning/Collegian
Junior Brittany Wilkens played with Russian pianist Olga Kern in Oregon.
Their ventures into the wider music world have begun after years of diligent practice, guided by sense of musical style.
Emerging from a summer of traveling and studying with some of the great living musical artists, three students of Susan Rathmell, assistant professor of music, since arriving at Hillsdale College, are continuing their courses with tastes informed by their experiences.
Russell Gates
Gates, a senior music major from Quincy, Mich., who is heading toward a career in composing film scores, sent a "quick demo" of Chopin and Rachmaninoff to the New Orleans International Piano Competition as an audition.
To add a new dimension to this competition-which gathers together great pianists from around the world in Louisiana-the New Orleans Piano Institute brings 40 talented piano students from around the world for ten days of immersion in music while the competition is happening, and this year Gates was among the 40.
"Considering that [piano performance] is sort of a small field of specialization, seeing the competition and how hard everyone else thinks and works toward making great music, was inspiring," he said.
Master classes, practice sessions, lectures and opportunities to hear the 12 finalists in the competition itself moved the days along with "constant music," Gates said.
"We had 10 to 11 hours of music per day."
Each day new teachers guided the students through difficult repertoires-often punctuated by Chopin's "Ballade in G minor"-and addressed different aspects of the students' work until they "dissected each song," Gates said.
Among his instructors was Alan Chow of Northwestern University, who was on the jury for the competition, and who has won the Concert Artists Guild Competition and Palm Beach International Competition.
Through the concentration on alternately playing and listening alongside students from Africa and northern Europe, Gates said he has found a broader sense of the musical repertoire-as well as an ambition of playing Chopin's "Ballade in G minor."
"I came out with a more meticulous knowledge of the craft-cleaner and more articulate," he said.
He has pursued music in earnest since high school, will continue his training for a career in creating film scores, working to compose for his senior recital.
Already, as a hobby, he composes music to merge with movie clips he has made.
With fellow-student Greg George he has established RG Productions, a "film-making enterprise."
Kristen Hoffman
A junior music major from Sterling Heights, Mich., Hoffman began her summer in England and ended it in Vermont.
While studying the philosophy of music at St. Peter's college at Oxford University as part of a summer course, Hoffman looked for a way into the Royal Academy of Music in London, one of the world's most prestigious schools for musical training.
She found her way through an opportunity to observe a master class by Stephen Hough, a "dynamic performer" whose recordings of Ravel, Liszt and Schumann she had heard.
After returning from England to home and work, Hoffman left again, this time for "the middle of nowhere in Vermont" for a master class with Menahem Pressler, founding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio.
Practicing on one of 30 pianos set in "little shacks in the woods," Hoffman met students from Russia, Japan and Poland, some of whom were older, with careers in various professions but with a great love for the piano.
Part of participating was observing: Hoffman described one student in particular, who came from Moscow and who seemed to "put herself into the part of the music."
"It was a collaboration of people from different backgrounds," Hoffman said.
"Everyone genuinely loved playing the piano; everyone had that appreciation, and loved being out in the woods."
Conversing with Pressler at the breakfast table and listening to him in class, Hoffman studied his approach of evoking emotion from music.
"[Pressler] emphasizes learning to perform so the audience genuinely loves the music," she said.
She prefers modern, atonal music-generally, her favorite style is that of 20 th century American and Russian composers-which she works to translate into terms that are comprehensible to first-time listeners. And beyond college, she hopes to continue doing so by introducing contemporary composers' new pieces to audiences.
Brittany Wilkens
Wilkens is a junior Classics major-with a minor in music-hailing from Bend, Ore.
She had only a short drive to the Sunriver Music Festival in Sunriver, Ore., for a lesson by Olga Kern, the Russian pianist who won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001.
Wilkens, who has played the piano for 14 years, said she dreamed of performing Mozart's "Piano Concerto #21 in C major" for a long time, and through the young artist's program that is part of the Sunriver Music Festival she was able to play it for Kern.
Mozart is Wilkens' favorite composer, and the opportunity to discuss him and work with his music beside one of the notable living pianists was a great one.
"She gave me general comments and specific ones," Wilkens said.
"She played the orchestra part on another piano, and emphasized making every note important, to give the piece a lot of clarity."
As one of four students in Kern's master class, Wilkens played with Kern for an hour and then observed Kern's work with the others.
"What she told me about my piece was the best part, for me," Wilkens said.
"She told me to get into the character of the composer. Mozart is light-hearted, and so I should keep that in the mood of the music."