Community Service is the Counterpoint to Performance for Credo Chamber Music Association

The student musicians enrolled in the Credo Chamber Music Association’s summer program, hosted by the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, are as handy with rakes and trowels as they are with violins and bows.

Credo, comprising nearly 60 college-age students chosen by live and taped audition from among nearly 120 gifted string musicians nationwide, is unique for the emphasis it places on community service and volunteerism. The group will participate in 14 days of chamber music, community-service work, and worship from July 6 to July 19. Activities include a series of public Oberlin concerts--many of which are free--and volunteer work at the Lorain County Metroparks and the Oberlin Early Childhood Center. The musicians will also present free concerts at the Grafton Correctional Facility and Kendal at Oberlin.

"Credo Chamber Music Association is unusual because of the way it combines musical excellence with high-level professional training in an environment of service," says Artistic Director Peter Slowik, an internationally known concert and recording artist and professor of viola at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

"Credo’s unique program of musical and personal growth continues to challenge and nurture the country’s finest string players. It is a great pleasure to bring these students--many of whom are national competition winners--to Oberlin to share the vision of service with art and being."

Slowik founded Credo in 1999, when he was a professor at Northwestern University. Parents of serious music students, as well as several Chicago-area music educators and pastors, joined him in creating the first session. This summer’s program includes a concert tour in Indiana and the Chicago area.

Recent Credo students are an accomplished group, having won on the state and national levels in the American String Teachers’ Solo Competition and at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They hail from the nation’s top conservatories, including Eastman, Indiana, Juilliard, Oberlin, and Peabody, and some have been principal players for youth orchestras in Atlanta, Chicago, and Milwaukee. The Credo faculty includes the dean of Juilliard and members of the nation’s top orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Pittsburgh Symphony (principal). Artistic Director Peter Slowik is past president of the American Viola Society.

"Credo’s success lies in its unique design," says Slowik. "Credo’s high-level professional training includes the most instructional time devoted to chamber music (1.5 hours daily) of any program in the country. Individual contact with faculty members, who are leading artist-teachers, is provided through private lessons and master classes.

"What further sets Credo apart is the program’s emphasis on service and spiritual growth. Credo teaches students to offer every part of their being to others, serving them with simple physical labor--cleaning homeless shelters, for example--as well as using their specially developed musical gifts by playing concerts for those who could not otherwise have the opportunity to hear live music. Through this unusually healthy approach to music study as the extension of a focused and balanced life, Credo empowers its students to be more productive members of their communities, musical ensembles, and families."

This year Credo announces a new program, Opus 1, designed for students ages 12 through 18. Held on campus June 22 to July 5, Opus 1 will allow these young students to experience chamber music settings while modeling Credo’s design of nurturing students artistically and spiritually.

For more information about the Credo Chamber Music Association, please contact Peter Slowik at 440-878-4539 (evening) or 440-775-8235 (day).