Interlochen Arts Camp is known for giving young artists the opportunity to explore new repertoire and perform in many mixed ensembles. But that transformative experience isn’t limited to students.
This summer, six Interlochen Arts Camp staff members, brass musician from a different part of the country, formed an ensemble of their own.
These staff members are working full-time jobs at camp, yet they still found time to rehearse, collaborate and perform purely for the love of music.
Lillian Patriquin, one of the group's trumpeters and a classical music stagehand at Interlochen, said she and fellow trumpeter and stagehand Tim Hosler spoke early in the summer about creating a group.
"About two weeks after we started work, Tim texted me and said, 'Hey, would you want to be in a brass quintet?'" Patriquin said.
The answer was yes, of course, and the five musicians began playing together in their rare spare time.
One quintet they played by Victor Ewald is relatively standard repertoire, and all of the musicians knew it already.
Patriquin said that familiarity is helpful when a new ensemble comes together because they already know the music and then can work on getting to know each other as a group.
But they also tackled new music this summer, including the sextet by Oskar Böhme, which was a more challenging piece than Patriquin said she had played before.
Between their daily responsibilities, these musicians carved out time to rehearse and prepare works both familiar and newly learned.
Some musicians have set schedules, while others have roles where they're on call and had to answer their phones during rehearsal if necessary.
"We've had to make some fun scheduling compromises," Patriquin said with a laugh.
The musicians gave their first public performance in IPR's Studio A. Hear their performances and interview on demand in this Studio A podcast episode.
Musicians:
Timothy Hosler, trumpet, classical music stagehand
Lillian Patriquin, trumpet, classical music stagehand
Madeline DeJoy, horn, ensemble library intern
Elijah Dugal, trombone, instrument services assistant
Aidan Carney, tuba, classical music stage manager
Tyler Castellanos, trumpet, classical music stage manager (Böhme only)
Music in this episode:
Victor Ewald, Brass Quintet no. 1, I. Moderato
Oskar Böhme, “Trumpet” Sextet, I. Adagio ma non tanto, Allegro molto
The episode was engineered by Michael Culler, with additional support from Tyler Castellanos, Gracie Westergaard and Scott Clemens.
