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Masterclasses and Workshops

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From the Renaissance to the XXI century!

Dear students,

The Orford Arts Centre, a jewel set in the magnificent natural region of the Eastern Townships, presents each year its prestigious academy and internationally renowned music festival. Forming an organic whole, the OAC has offered, for 59 years now, a unique environment conducive to the development of many generations of young musicians at the graduate and postgraduate level.

In this increasingly materialistic and individualistic society in which we live, I believe what you—young artists entrenched in study—are most looking for is an artistic ideal that is rarely offered: the comprehensive development of the whole, and the enrichment that comes from being exposed to different points of view on art and life in general!

Beginning this year, there will be a great new addition to the Orford Academy’s regular activities. Indeed, due to the Orford Art Centre’s incredible team, an important orchestral workshop has now been created: the Orford Academy Orchestra—or the OAO! as we like to call it. This new training will permit students to experience all aspects of an orchestral musician’s life. To this we will also add a new humanities component consisting of lectures on various topics and presented by specialists in their fields. Among the subjects: Wagner’s Tristan and the philosophy of Schopenhauer, the history of the world during the time of Chopin and Schumann, the   relationship between astronomy and music, the posture and health of a musician, the memory, the fortepiano during the Romantic period, painting and the Renaissance, and even gastronomy! I hope that by creating links between different disciplines, these new additions will stimulate your creativity. Also, a weekly film club will now be offered to you.

Hence, while relying on the Orford Academy’s long tradition of excellence, and thanks to its teachers, master classes and workshops, the Orford Arts Centre is now an unparalleled place where one can seek a comprehensive education, humanistic and worthy of the ideals of the Renaissance, in this, the beginning of the XXI century!

I look forward to meeting you!

Jean-François Rivest
Artistic Director of the Orford Arts Centre, and conductor