When Sebastian Lang-Lessing invited violinist Vadim Gluzman to participate in a new task involving high-level musicians with academics for online master classes, the musician returned to his own gadgets as a teenager.
“I was an 18-year-old student, if I could have access to Pinchas Zukerman as well, or Itzhak Perlman, to ask for classes,” Gluzman said. “Here just click on the yetton and it will contact you. I don’t need to speak for myself, however, if you take a look at the list, those are the biggest musicians alive today, at least some of them.”
Before the virtual era, such opportunities for master elegance were scarce and difficult to organize, he noted.
Gluzman is one of dozens of classical musicians from around the world that Lang-Lessing has enlisted for VirtuMasterClass, which was introduced in July in virtumasterclass.com. The growing list includes pianists, cellists, violinists, violists and, for tango lovers, a solitary bandoneon player. There are also a lot of vocal artists, adding sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, tenors, baritone and a vocal coach.
The site includes the mezzo soprano Dolora Zajick, who has been praised for her masterful performances of Verdi’s works and has given more than 260 performances at the Metropolitan Opera; clarinetist David Shifrin, one of only 3 wind players to win the Avery Fisher Award; and J.P.Jofre, a prolific composer and bandoneonist known for combining musical styles with tango.
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Part of lang-Lessing’s preference for solo musicians whose finances were affected because live performances were canceled due to COVID-19. But its broader purpose is to make sure that young musicians have the resources to continue expanding their talents.
“They are all glorious artists who have traveled through San Antonio,” said Lang-Lessing, who has just finished a decade as music director of the San Antonio Symphony. “They want to stay connected to their audience, but the next generation of musicians is more important. This training allows them to succeed in academics around the world.”
“This gives academics the opportunity to relate to other people who are their idols and why they study. This gives them the inspiration they lack lately due to the lack of concerts.”
Prices from $200 to $300 in accordance with the session, with discounts for various sessions.
“It’s an intense and very intense exercise,” Lang-Lessing said.
He is preparing for donors to sponsor students.
“I really would be a double winner, because they would be the art they love and the schooling of the next generation,” he said.
Most years, Gluzman maintains a busy international touring schedule that leaves little time for teaching, aside from a small group of students he works with as Distinguished Artist in Residence at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.
“To have the opportunity (through the site) to connect to young talented people without limitations of distance or even time, it is really extraordinary,” he said. “I think it’s a genius idea.”
Gluzman is friends with several of his fellow artists in “Half of those other people are my dear and much admired colleagues,” adding Mark Kosower, the Cleveland Orchestra’s lead cello. He brought Kosower to Lang-Lessing just a few months ago.
Kosower was immediately seduced by the VirtuMasterClass concept.
“I think it was exciting and cutting edge in the sense that now you can not only succeed in other people where you could normally succeed and who would be interested in those master classes, but it also graduates the playing field, because other people around the world can access this list of star musicians,” he said.
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Kosower is in the procedure of scheduling your first VirtuMasterClass sessions. But he has done a lot of online studies since the start of the pandemic, and said he felt a lot of anxiety from those preparing to graduate from college or high school and start their professional life.
“People feel stagnant because they are at the beginning of their careers and suddenly there is a great mark of consultation: what will happen?” He said. “So I made a lot of recommendations, and the main recommendation for someone that age is to continue expanding as an instrumentalist or, if you’re a singer, singer, build your voice so you can climb as high as possible.” “
Like Kosower, pianist Jon Kimura Parker is preparing his first sessions on the site. Teaching is a vital component of being a musician, said Parker, who has taught at Rice University for 20 years.
“It conveys a legacy of what his teachers gave him, which is very important to me,” he said.
Lang-Lessing has scored the most of his power since April in the progression of the VirtuMasterClass. It’s a big task that took many hours. Working on it helped him succeed the pain of the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra’s resolve to cancel performances until January.
Abandoned concerts included some that I planned to perform at the end of last season and as a component of the 2020-2021 season.
“It’s … therapeutic,” he says. “I miss the musicians of the San Antonio Symphony. I’m hurt by the fact that I haven’t seen them for over a year.”
“But I also miss the artists (alone) I paint with, and it’s other people with whom, through this site, I’m still in touch. It’s very inspiring.”
Deborah Martin is an art from the San Antonio area and Bexar County. To learn more about Deborah, subscribe. [email protected] Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
Deborah Martin is an art that came to paintings for the San Antonio Express-News in 1999. He writes basically in the theater (he sees about a hundred exhibits a year) and is helping to oversee the politics of the show’s fine arts newspaper. Her first press assignment was in El Paso Herald-Post, where she painted as generalist reporter before becoming editor-in-chief of arts and entertainment. After the closing of the Herald-Post, he spent just over a year covering the arts of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times before joining Express-News. He graduated in journalism from UT El Paso and was a member of the NEA Institute of Artistic Journalism in Musical Theater and Theater at the University of Southern California in 2007.