British maestro teaches free, public classes at School of Music

Photo by James Judd by muzsika2011 courtesy of Creative Commons.

Andrea Vizcaino/Contributing Writer

Students wave their batons to Beethoven’s “Edmond Overture” in the Symphony Orchestra’s master class for those that aspire to become future conductors of the music world.

James Judd, guest artist-in-residence at the University, will lead the conducting master class in a rehearsal performance at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center on April 8. Classes are free and open to the public.

Judd has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, the English Chamber Orchestra and, more recently, the Metropolitan Orchestra of Tokyo. He also led orchestras of the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music and Manhattan School of Music, among others.

Judd’s residency stems from the partnership between the Miami Music Project and the School of Music.

Judd will be collaborate with other conductors including Grzegorz Nowak, head of the School of Music’s conducting program, to work on pieces like Beethoven’s “Edmond Overture” for April concerts.

While Nowak is currently in Madrid, his assistant conductor Darwin Aquino spoke to Student Media about the master classes as “an exciting learning tool for many music students who are trying to become maestros themselves.”

“The conductors that are going to be taking this class are the students of Grzegorz Nowak,” Aquino said. “We are very happy to have James Judd to come and basically be our second conducting teacher, and to have both Nowak and Judd there will be an experience that the students are sure to learn from.”

“The main focus of the event is to work with the best maestros and to develop skills, talk about technique, instrumentation and to understand the importance of certain music pieces,” said Aquino.

Aquino said when Nowak first came to the University, he wanted to raise the level of the conducting program to convert it into one of the best programs in the United States.

“The main focus of the event is to work with the best maestros and to develop skills, talk about technique, instrumentation and to understand the importance of certain music pieces,” he said.

Anthony Armas, a junior majoring in music performance, finds the program to be beneficial.

“The master classes are a great way to learn pointers from these famous maestros, learning new gestures for the same effect and having a different approach to it is an exciting experience for us students to learn,” Armas said.

Carlos Garcia, a junior majoring in music education and performance, expressed interested in the program.

“It’s quite the experience to learn from these maestros and to experience the music with them and their achievement in the music world. It’s extremely motivational,” he said.
The goal is for Judd to come and conduct this master class to improve the level of the conducting students, creating an opportunity for them to interact with major names in the music world.

-news@fiusm.com

Be the first to comment on "British maestro teaches free, public classes at School of Music"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*