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Oberlin Conservatory Students Celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of the Panama Project
Story by Linda
Shockley
Photos by Beth Weiss and Ramon Owens
New Updates Directly from Panama:
• Fletcher Forehand on the
Panama Project
• Pictures from
Panama
Rehearsing under banana trees. Riding in the pollo-mobile. Watching the sunset from the mountain village of El Valle. Performing in the ruins of Old Panama. These are only a few of the treasured moments from past trips to Panama.
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The 12 students, accompanied by Tim Weiss, associate professor of wind conducting, will work with a 55-member youth orchestra, offer chamber music and orchestral coachings, private lessons, master classes and performances. Conservatory students work closely with more than 130 Panamanian musicians, aged six-26.
About the Panama Project
- The project offers a 24-hour immersion in music, beginning with early morning classes and performances, and ending with late night musical activities. In the process, Conservatory musicians gain valuable performance experience in important and unusual venues, hone pedagogical skills, and study informally another language.
- The group will spend a week at a music camp in Panama City - IXV Campamento Musical Juventil - held at the Catholic University, where mornings are devoted to a music preparatory program with children under 12 years of age; afternoons are dedicated to older students in chamber and orchestral work.
- During the second week, Conservatory students will travel two hours by bus from Panama City to a convent in the more remote mountain region of El Valle.
- Conservatory students will offer nine performances together, and in combination with Panamanian chamber ensembles and orchestra. Concert venues range from Panama City to rural mountain communities, including schools, a university, churches and the Ruinas de Panama Viejo, the beautiful stone ruins of Old Panama City.
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The project continues to thrive, in a large measure, through the dedication of Terence Ford, who 15 years ago convinced the Board of Directors of the Asociacion Nacional de Conciertos to sponsor a youth music camp as a contribution to the local music scene.
Ford explains, "I had previously organized camps for the
Episcopal Church and I appreciated the value of such an
activity for young people. As my involvement grew, I
realized how much music contributed to the camp experience.
We were very lucky to enlist the aid of the U.S. Information
Service which provided three excellent musicians during the
camp's first five years. We experienced another bit of
fortune when an Oberlin undergraduate, bassoonist Nicky
Kuster, came to the sixth camp with a string quartet. Thus
initiated a most fruitful relationship with
Oberlin."
Musical
Collaborators Tim Weiss and Terence Ford
Ford adds, "Five years ago, Dr. Joanne Erwin, director of Oberlin's Music Education division, joined the undergraduates and was the conductor of the camp orchestra for two consecutive days. Now, conductor Tim Weiss is returning for his third time. The participation of these Oberlin faculty members has been invaluable. It has brought cohesion and direction in the formation of the groups on campus and provided an outstanding opportunity for the Panama campers to perform under the baton of such experienced musicians as Joanne Erwin and Tim Weiss."
He adds, "The camp has become vital to the education of serious musicians, and to the benefit of music lovers. For example, most of the younger members of our National Symphony Orchestra have attended the camp."
Fifth-year,
double degree student Katayoon Hodjati (flute
performance/Spanish) returns in 2000 for her third year with
the Panama Project. "It's easy to lose perspective in a
conservatory when you're surrounded by other serious, young
musicians," Hodjati says, "My involvement in the Panama
Project reminds me that there is much more to music than
playing the right notes! The Panamanian musicians and
audiences are the most receptive, most passionate, that I
have ever experienced. It's amazing to be with people who
are so excited by music and it serves to remind me why I
study music. I take great pleasure in watching my students
improve, as well as noticing the improvements in my playing
and teaching skills. We learn as much from the Panamanian
musicians as they learn from us. I have formed lifelong
friendships in Panama, with the musicians and also with our
host families."
Tim Weiss explains his dedication to the program, "The experience is a very powerful one for Conservatory students and the Panamanian musicians. The rewards are great on both sides. Our students, most of them performance majors, receive their first taste of full time teaching. Many of the Con students have taught private lessons to kids once or twice a week. But in Panama, they teach from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. They learn so much about pedagogy: what it's like to teach, how rewarding and challenging it is, and how difficult it is to practice while teaching full time!!! At the end of the second week when their students and their chamber groups perform recitals, it's exciting to see each Oberlin student individually take so much pride and ownership of how his or her groups and students play in the recitals. It's an experience they could never receive during a semester at home."
Weiss adds, "Playing for these audiences is unique, powerful and rewarding in ways that playing in North America is not. In the small, rural towns and villages, some people in the audience have never heard western classical music. Some of them are hearing and seeing a French horn or bassoon or oboe or cello for the first time. And they are so thankful and appreciative. It is very gratifying."
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