Great Barrington — If there’s one thing young musicians need as much as practice time, it’s social connection with their peers and mentors. Nobody understands this better than the folks who run the Berkshire High Peaks Festival, and so they are holding a three-day online reunion party January 3, 4, and 5, open to the public, for students who participated in the High Peaks summer program. Their aim with these events is to remedy both the professional and social isolation musicians must endure when everyone is stuck at home. If Zooming with your aunt Nel makes you feel socially connected, that’s fine. But if you are a musician, you need to interact with other musicians. It’s how you stay alive, artistically and otherwise.
“We are finding ways to relieve the loneliness that has been imposed on us, which is especially grievous in light of the diminished opportunities to collaborate in person with fellow performers” writes founder and artistic director Yehuda Hanani on the High Peaks home page. “We want to keep the flames of passion and commitment, dedication and love for our chosen profession blazing.”
Hanani aims to keep students engaged and active through master classes, panel discussions, and advice from wellness specialists. He’s even engaged a psychiatrist-musician, Dr. Mark Cannon, to talk to the group about “keeping our music, our hopes and our spirits going in such a stressful and uncertain time.”
But it’s not all chit-chat at this virtual get-together. For their respective instruments, violinist Peter Zazofsky (Boston University); opera singers Danielle Talamantes and Kerry Wilkerson (Metropolitan Opera and George Mason University); violinist Irina Muresanu (University of Maryland); cellist Yehuda Hanani; and pianist Alexander Shtarkman (Peabody Conservatory) all hold in-depth master classes, which, no matter where you witness them, are always an eye opener for both musicians and spectators.
A person with no interest whatsoever in any kind of music performance (sigh) may be underwhelmed by these High Peaks Festival sessions. Everyone else will find them riveting. Music of the spheres — reverse engineered.
