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Private Lesson Program

Instrumental Music

Recordings   Recent Performances and Tour Information   2010-2011 Performance Calendar

The Instrumental Music Program at Blair offers the student a multi-faceted range of experiences. From private lessons to a large Orchestra, students are exposed to all aspects of instrumental music, much of which meets during the academic day as full-credit classes. Instrumental students perform four major concerts each year, in addition to providing music for vespers services and other school functions.

Blair Orchestra to Perform in NY City
Blair Academy’s student orchestra will travel to New York City for a day of performing and concert-going on Thursday, April 14. Jen Pagotto, chair of the performing arts department, explained, “The group will spend the afternoon performing in a clinic with the New York Youth Symphony’s conductor Paul Haas, working on repertoire including Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, Grainger’s Children’s March and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera. Soloists for the Brandenburg are Blair seniors Jenny Shin, violin; Emi LaFountain, flute; and Da Eun Jung, piano. Following the clinic, the orchestra members will attend a New York Philharmonic concert.”

About conductor Paul Haas:
Following in a series of world-renowned conductors, including Leonard Slatkin and Myung-Whun Chung, Paul Haas is now the 14th music director of the New York Youth Symphony. He has consistently impressed music critics nationwide with his “fiery brilliance” and “bold, muscular, go-for-broke conducting.” In addition to appearances as the assistant conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Haas’ conducting engagements have included performances with the San Antonio Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, among others, as well as festival appearances. Recently, Haas conducted the National Symphony Orchestra with Itzhak Perlman as soloist.

Haas recently shared the podium with Michael Tilson Thomas, co-conducting a week of rehearsals and performances with the New World Symphony in Miami to great critical acclaim. These performances emphasized Haas’ continued commitment to working with young orchestra musicians. He maintains an active role in the contemporary music scene, having commissioned a new work for every concert he has conducted with the New York Youth Symphony as part of its ASCAP Award-winning “First Music” program. His numerous television and radio appearances include features on a CBS Sunday Morning special entitled “American Maestro” and the McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase on New York’s WQXR. Haas and the New York Youth Symphony were recently awarded the ASCAP-American Symphony Orchestra League Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming, the first time that coveted award has ever been presented to a youth orchestra.

Haas is a graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, where he studied conducting as a Bruno Walter Fellow with Otto-Werner Mueller.

Blair releases new CD, “Live”

Members of the music department are pleased to announce the release of their newest CD, “Live.” This double disc CD features Blair’s vocal and instrumental students and includes 27 tracks taken from concert seasons 2006-2009. Highlights include Jazz Ensemble’s Seven Steps to Heaven, String Orchestra’s “Spring” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, The Blair Academy Singers performing Fair Phyllis and Zion’s Walls, the Blair String Trio, and the Blair Orchestra performing Pirates of the Caribbean and The William Tell Overture. CDs are on sale for $15 and will be available for purchase at all music department performances, through the Blair bookstore and through the Blair Web site. All proceeds will go towards Blair’s orchestra trip this coming June.

Recent Performances and Tour Information

View Video of Historic “First” for Music Department
From William Tell Overture to Pirates of the Caribbean

May 1 – often called May Day – is a celebration of Spring (recall the maypole), Labor Day in many countries, and even a bank holiday in the United Kingdom. But at Blair, May 1, 2009, will go down in School history as the first time Blair has boasted a full orchestra. View an excerpt by clicking the arrow button below.

Under the direction of Jennifer Pagotto, members of the music department took to the stage on Friday evening, May 1, including the string trio, jazz ensemble, wind symphony, string orchestra and full orchestra, heralding the season with such selections – entitled appropriately enough – as Primavera Portena and Gershwin’s Summertime.

In addition to the William Tell Overture and Pirates of the Caribbean, the full orchestra played Copeland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody. Jen introduced this impressive group by noting the historical nature of the moment – not only the founding of the full orchestra but the fact that it exists because of a talent pool of “high caliber” musicians. At the conclusion of their three selections, orchestra members received a standing ovation from the audience.

Please click here to view photos from the evening's performances.

Click arrow button to start/pause video.

New York Philharmonic Trip
January 22, 2009
Blair’s instrumental and vocal music students traveled to New York City in January to visit the New York Philharmonic and tour Lincoln Center. Students heard masterworks by Franz Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms, as well as a solo vocal performance by internationally renowned baritone Thomas Quastoff. In addition to seeing this world-class orchestra perform, students toured the facilities at Lincoln Center, including Avery-Fisher Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, New York State Theatre, the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and Alice Tully Hall.

The Blair Academy String Ensemble and Singers Take an International Tour
Director of Instrumental Music Jen Pagotto recounts the European tour of the Blair Singers and String Ensemble as they made their way through Prague, Vienna and Budapest in June.

In early June, the Blair Academy Singers and String Ensemble embarked on an Eastern Europe concert tour, the first trip ever for a Blair Academy instrumental ensemble and the first tour in four years for Singers. During the 12-day trip, we performed four full concerts, participated in two mass services and gave several informal performances in Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Each performance received enthusiastic applause and requests for encores.

For more exciting photos and text from the tour. please click here.

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