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Music

Grammy winner takes helm

Matt Albert succeeds Arkady Fomin at festival’s conservatory
Matt Albert, the new Music in the Mountains Conservatory director, hopes to inspire students and help them realize what they are capable of.

Growing up in a musical family in Virginia, Matt Albert started playing the violin at the age of 4 and picked up the piano soon after.

As he grew older, he continued taking lessons and performing but wove music into his busy schedule of sports and extracurricular activities. It wasn’t until he was a junior in high school attending a summer youth festival in North Carolina that he realized he wanted to devote himself fully to music.

“That summer that I spent there was the first time that I had been primarily a violinist,” Albert said. “I got to be just a violinist, and I loved it. I decided to go to college for music at that point.”

Albert, who is the new director of the Music in the Mountains Conservatory, said he hopes to provide young musicians with the same spark that changed the course of his life when he was a teenager.

“I think that I would be so thrilled if the students walked away with a kind of bigger vision of what they themselves are capable of as musicians,” he said. “I hope that we’ll be challenging them, I hope that we’ll be inspiring them, and at the end of the two weeks they’ll realize how much they are capable of.”

Albert, who kicks off the 2014 conservatory next week, has some big shoes to fill. He is stepping in to the position previously held by conservatory founder and longtime director Arkady Fomin, who died in May.

Music in the Mountains Artistic Director Greg Hustis said the organization was looking for a specific set of skills when they began the daunting task of replacing Fomin.

“It takes somebody who is a great musician, it takes somebody who knows how to work with young people, and it takes somebody who is aware of the future,” Hustis said.

Hustis believes Music in the Mountains has found that combination in Albert, an accomplished violist and violinist who is director of chamber music at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in suburban Dallas. Albert, a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning ensemble eighth blackbird, also directs SYZGY, the Meadows New Music Ensemble.

He steps into the position as the conservatory is undergoing a major transition but says he’s excited about the opportunity to teach classical music – as well as a few life skills – to this year’s 15 string students.

“I’m thrilled,” Albert said. “It’s an incredible challenge for me and such a musically satisfying goal to be working toward.”

The conservatory is a small, selective and intense two-week program for high school and college string musicians held at Fort Lewis College. Each student will be placed in a chamber music group as well as the Conservatory String Orchestra, and all the students will have the opportunity to perform in public concerts, after-hours salons and informal pop-ups.

Students also will attend faculty chamber performances and concerts by the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra. And, new this year, students will be afforded time to hike, raft and enjoy Durango’s recreational opportunities.

Albert earned degrees in music from Oberlin College and Conservatory, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Northwestern School of Music, and he received instruction from teachers like Kenneth Sarch, Gregory Fulkerson and Almita Vamos. He said he was exposed to a wide variety of teaching styles growing up, from traditional theory to the Suzuki Method, and he pulls from many of those for his own teaching approach. He wants to create autonomous learners, he said.

“One of the things that is so important to me is teaching people how to teach themselves and how to learn from their colleagues, so that it’s not just somebody being told what to do by an expert, but thinking critically about what they want to achieve and having the tools to do that,” he said.

He also wants to pass on the joy of creativity, collaboration and musical expression, he said – the exchange of energy and performance and ideas between musicians that leads to incredible places.

“That has kept me excited throughout my career,” he said.

Albert said that when Hustis, a colleague at SMU, approached him about the conservatory position, he saw a great opportunity in engaging an even bigger crop of students. He also is bringing a brand-new faculty to this year’s program. Albert sought out dynamic and innovative instructors to join him, he said.

“I thought about the people who kind of had a shared vision, who were engaged and dynamic and excited, both as musicians and performers,” he said.

The faculty includes Roger Fratena, associate principal bassist of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Wheaton College professor and viola player Rose Armbrust Griffin and Andrew McCann, an Alexander Technique teacher based in Chicago.

Albert hopes to get students out in the community in a variety of ways.

“When you have a conservatory in the community, engaging that community where the audience experiences the performances in as many ways as possible keeps people more engaged,” he said. “Those connections are some of the most important things to sustain a conservatory.”

Hustis said that before Fomin passed away in May, he gave his approval of his replacement.

“He agreed with us that Matt would be a fantastic choice,” Hustis said. “I felt that we had his blessing.”

kklingsporn@durangoherald.com

Jul 10, 2014
Music in the Mountains Conservatory rebuilds


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