Endicott College, Beverly, MA
2023 Midsummer Adult Piano Retreat Participants
Saturday, July 6, 2024 – Saturday, July 13, 2024
Endicott College in Beverly, MA on the WATER
Easily accessible from Logan Airport. Beautiful Campus with easy parking.
Covid Policy: Participants must be fully vaccinated in order to attend this retreat. See Covid details here.
We will offer highly informative lectures, daily movement classes, 3 private lessons, practice time, 2 guest artist recitals, a “Fireside Chat” on the roof, a masterclass with Max Levinson, ensemble coachings with Ellie Perrone, a dinner outing and time for student sharing. The dormitory is made up of townhouses with 3 to a townhouse; you will have a private room. Both the dorms and music building are air conditioned.
The total tuition is $2300 USD. To register, please send a $700 non-refundable deposit to Deborah Adams. Venmo, Zelle, Paypal or a check is fine. Email us at summerpianoretreat@gmail.com for details and information on payment options. The remainder of tuition will be due according to the following schedule:
April 1, 2024: $800.00 USD (If you prefer to pay the full balance of $1600, you may do so.)
June 1, 2024: $800.00 USD
Note: Transportation to and from Endicott College is NOT included in the tuition.
From our 2022 participants:
*Our faculty is unequaled, as it has always been. I think we have been so fortunate all these years to have them. That’s the most important aspect of the whole MAPR experience, and I just can’t imagine another workshop that would command that kind of enduring loyalty. Bravissimo!
*The MAPR is such a special experience, and it has become a very important part of my life each summer.
*Debi, Alison, and John, I learn so much from you each year and I feel like I make a giant leap forward during each MAPR session in large part through lessons, classes, and one-on-one conversations with each of you.
*What an awesome group! All the formal and informal opportunities we have to socialize, converse, and exchange our thoughts on music makes this such a rich experience.
*Piano retreat week is one of my favorite times of the year. I love music, but playing the piano can be a lonely pursuit. Coming together in person with others who share one’s interest, challenges, and joys is a valuable part of the program for me.
*Having the concert come to us was a real treat. The opportunity to interact with the musicians in a more intimate setting was indeed special.
*I particularly enjoy the “fireside” chats. They are always informative, relevant to playing better or with ease and a great opportunity to interact with the whole group.
*The in-depth lectures on composers or music we’re going to hear at the concert are always well-done and interesting.
*It is a great privilege to learn from Debi, Alison, and John. It is also a wonderful experience for the students to learn from and encourage one another as we explore our pianistic interests!
FACULTY
Debi Adams is a Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique and a Nationally Certified Teacher of Piano. She holds a Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance from Boston University. Debi currently teaches the Alexander Technique at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she also directs a teacher-training course. Her teaching has brought her to Peru, Seoul, Germany and Tokyo. Debi maintains a private practice in piano and the Alexander Technique. She performs in the Boston area and Buffalo with her 4-hand partner. debiadamsat.com, thewelltemperedpianist.com
Alison Barr operates an independent studio in Hanover, Massachusetts, and holds the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) National Certificate in piano. She serves as a musical ambassador in the American Voices YES Academy in Beirut, Lebanon, and recently created the MMTA Music Connect Program, which grants tuition assistance for private lessons. Alison holds a Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance from Boston University. With flute as her second instrument, Alison works with her students, children and adults alike, on collaborative musicianship. Alison has been named Music Teachers National Association’s Teacher of the Year 2024 and will be recognized in Atlanta in March, 2024.
John Ferguson holds a Doctoral degree in Piano from Indiana University, where he studied piano with Edward Auer and Menahem Pressler. As an undergraduate he majored in both Piano and Violin at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, and as a graduate student at Indiana studied conducting, composition and violin intensively while earning his degrees in piano.
Ferguson’s performances have been praised for their “proselytizing zeal–along with fleet fingers, power, and fine dynamic control” (Boston Globe) Ferguson has performed solo recitals in major cities throughout the US, including concert series’ and festivals in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, San Diego, and Providence.
In 2002 Ferguson was a semifinalist in the Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Other awards include Second Prize in the San Francisco State Young Pianists’ Competition and First Prize in the Lodi Symphony Concerto Competition. As a composer Ferguson has received awards and honors from the Bakersfield Symphony, Composers’ Guild, ASCAP, Society of Composers, and American Composers Forum, who commissioned his brass quintet Part Park, Part Art. Ferguson’s Piano Piece No. 4 was selected for performance at the Toronto 2000 international music conference. johnferguson.org
GUEST ARTISTS:
“My teaching goal is to help each individual student become their own unique artist, with their own voice. I help them to become the best version of themselves.”
Max Levinson has been on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory since 2001. He is a professor of piano and teaches piano, chamber music, piano literature, and the Piano Performance Seminar.
As a pianist, Levinson is known as an intelligent and sensitive artist with a fearless technique. His international career was launched when he won first prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition (1997), becoming the first American to achieve this distinction. Levinson is also a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1999) and the Andrew Wolf Award (2005). He has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, New World Symphony, Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, San Antonio Symphony, Louisville Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, as well as in recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., London’s Wigmore Hall, Zürich’s Tonhalle, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston, and throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
An active chamber musician, Levinson has performed with the Tokyo, Vermeer, Mendelssohn, Borromeo, Parker, and Muir quartets, and he appears at major music festivals, including Santa Fe, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Bravo/Vail, La Jolla, Seattle, and Cartagena. His recordings have earned wide acclaim, including his most recent recording with violinist Stefan Jackiw of the Brahms’s Three Sonatas (Sony). For more information, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/levinson-max-aaa42817/
Hailed a “Virtuosic Storyteller” by the Kieler Nachtrichten, Eleanor Perrone’s performances have consistently elicited rousing ovations in response to her electric energy and sonic beauty. The Boston Globe states, “Perrone is a pianist who makes you listen.”
As soloist with the Boston Pops under Harry Ellis Dickson in Symphony Hall, she brought the audience to its feet and was invited back for several performances. A concert tour in Brazil brought her to São Paolo and Campinas, where she performed Ravel’s Concerto in G with Benito Juarez of the Orquestra Sinfonica de Campinas, as well as giving solo recitals and master classes at Unicamp and City University of São Paolo. Her performance of Rhapsody in Blue with the Billings Symphony elicited the following from the Billings Outpost; “…Ms. Perrone performed with passion and perfection…”. Other concerto engagements have included the Merrimack Valley Symphony Orchestra, Thayer Symphony, and with the Brookline Symphony, the Boston premiere of the Vaughan Williams Piano Concerto.
As soloist and chamber musician, engagements have included Caramoor Festival, Arts in the Village, Concerts at the Point, Oracle Piano Society, Wolfeboro Friends of Music, and LiveArts concert series, as well as faculty series at The Rivers School Conservatory and The Longy School of Music. Ms. Perrone enjoys speaking to the audience about her programs as a way of drawing in the audience and breaking down some of the barriers in classical music between artist and audience.
Ms. Perrone is a founding member of Zefíra Trio, with Ashima Scripp, cello and Olga Patramanskaya-Bell, violin, and also performs as duo with Ms. Scripp. The Zefíra Trio programming reflects a commitment to musical excellence that displays the artistry and depth of each instrument as both an individual voice and as part of a unified whole. Programs often highlight the unique sonorities and capabilities of each instrument by including some of the great duo or solo repertoire alongside piano trios.
Former piano faculty of the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA, she is currently on the piano faculty of the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, MA, teaches privately in her home studio, and joined the Performance Faculty of Boston College in Fall 2023.
For more information, please visit http://www.eleanorperrone.com.
Steven Laven, cellist/composer, is Principal Cellist of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, section cello member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and plays regularly with the Boston Pops Esplanade and Boston Lyric Opera Orchestras. Previously, Mr. Laven has held titled positions in the Houston Ballet, Houston Grand Opera and Omaha Symphony Orchestras. He has earned cello performance degrees from the Eastman and Manhattan Schools of Music and has won awards for his compositions. In the summers he has performed at the Grand Teton, Chautauqua, and Lancaster Music Festivals, and with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. He has been a faculty member at Rhode Island College, Houston Baptist University and East Carolina University. He is currently on the faculty of The Rivers School Conservatory and teaches a large studio of young cellists there and from his home studio. In 2015, he was named the Studio Teacher of the Year by the Massachusetts chapter of American String Teachers Association. Mr. Laven’s music has been performed on new music series in Houston, Galveston, and Boston as well Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center “Presents” by the Philadelphia Orchestra Marimba Quartet. Houston’s groundbreaking River Oaks Chamber Orchestra commissioned his piece Beyond the Odyssey in 2005 for their inaugural CD. His cello quartet version of A Barnraising was performed on NPR’s “From the Top” by a quartet of cellists from Boston Youth Symphony, where he is on the artistic faculty. Ensembles from the Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Houston, Seattle, Colorado, and Omaha Symphony Orchestras have performed Mr. Laven’s compositions and arrangements, as well as youth orchestras and school string programs across the country. He has self-produced a CD of his music, which includes pieces written for and performed with his wife, BSO piccolo and flutist Cynthia Meyers.
We would like to honor, acknowledge and deeply thank Peter Kristian Mose, the founding faculty member of our retreat. Peter started the forerunner of our Williams program in the Czech Republic in 2000. We’ve based the Midsummer Adult Piano Retreat on this original model. Peter has offered his wisdom and expertise to our program since its inception in 2005, continuing to serve as a faculty member until 2017. Peter, your influence will always be with us and we appreciate that you have pledged your ongoing support to future retreats. Thank you!
Piano Retreat 