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Dates: April 12 - 19, 2005

APRIL in TUSCANY ! What more glorious way to spend your holiday and begin a new season of music making ?

Musical Passages is very pleased to again work with the Bridge Quartet of London to offer our third coached Workshop for String Quartets with these fine performers and teachers.  After an amazing week with the Quartet in Normandy in the Spring of 2003, we return to this venue in Tuscany, one of the most beloved areas of Italy.  The place is Cortona, founded by the Etruscans, and one of the oldest and most scenic hill towns in the heart of Tuscany.  Seemingly floating high above the Val di Chiana plain, on terraced slopes covered with olives and vine, Cortona may not be entirely undiscovered, but it is still one of the real jewels among hill towns.

The Bridge Quartet, well known to concert audiences in the U.K. and throughout Europe, will give a concert at the end of the week with some Italian friends, including Marcello Defant.  Workshop assignments will be selected from their program and from works which participants and coaches may identify. Experienced chamber music coaches in such prestigious venues as Dartington Hall in England and the Hindemith Foundation in Switzerland, the Bridge garnered acclaim in The Strad for their recording of the Delius and Grieg quartets (Chamber Disc of the Month, May 2001) and gave their second very successful Wigmore Hall concert in December 2003.  More recent appearances include music festivals in Spain in Gerona and Jimena de la Frontera.

Quartet members will coach us each day in assigned groups, and there will be time for informal playing and sightseeing in this beautiful town and region. Cortona’s remarkable site brought it notoriety early on.  A major power in the Middle Ages, it was able to hold its own against Siena, Perugia, and Arezzo, all of which are easy to visit from here. Today Cortona is a charming maze of old streets and medieval buildings, like the Palazzo Communale on the Plaza Signoreli.  The town’s early history is traced in the Museo della’Accademia Etrusca; fine paintings, including works by Cortona’s three celebrated native artists (Luca Signorelli, Pietro da Cortona and Gino Severini) are to be found in the Museo Diocesanos and several of Cortona’s historic churches, and drinking a coffee in the cafe outside the Palazzo Communale is a fine way to pass an hour or two, observing life in this beautiful corner of the world.

We will stay in a lovely hotel, the Oasi Neumann, housed in a former monastery set in a beautiful park-like property with many olive trees and vineyards, just outside the Cortona walls. Overlooking the Val di Chiana and Trasimeno Lake, the hotel includes 50 rooms with private baths and many playing spaces in the various buildings of the monastery. There is a grand piano which we can use in the wine cellar.  There is even a lovely baroque private chapel in the hotel, an elegant restaurant serving typical Tuscan cuisine, a bar, the wine cellar for wine tasting, and enclosed parking on the grounds. There are many low-cost airlines flying from the U.K. to Italy these days. The hotel is easily accessible by train from Rome and other parts of Tuscany. Please consult the hotel’s website for travel information and the Italian Railway website for train information.

A discount is offered for pre-formed quartets who apply by the deadline of January 15, 2005. We will limit enrollment to only 8 quartets, so order of application and balance of instruments will be considered if we need to make these kinds of decisions.  Participants should bring their own music stands.

Cello rental can be arranged for early applicants if necessary. Non-players are always welcome.

Cortona, Tuscany April 12 - 19, 2005 Single:    € 1,055 (Euros) 7 nights, full board Shared:  € 930 (Euros)  7 nights, full board Student: € 800 (Euros)  7 nights, full board * Non-players deduct 100 Euros * pre-formed quartet members deduct 45 Euros * Application deadline: January 15, 2005 * Acceptance notification: January 30, 2005 * Final payment due: February 28, 2005

 

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