Basic Information

Participants：10 instrument music students (both at the graduate and undergraduate levels)
Location：Ambleside in Cumbria, England
Period：August 2 – 15, 2015

Achievements

On August 3, 2015, the participants from Tokyo University of the Arts (TUA) arrived in the Lake District via the Manchester Airport, from where they took bus to Brathay Hall near Ambleside, the main venue of the Lake District Summer Music’s International Summer Music Academy. The course consisting of individual lessons and sessions of chamber music coaching and string ensemble rehearsal began on the following day. Faculty members of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music served as their tutors, joined by world-class chamber music artists such as the Berlin-based Kuss Quartet, Trio di Parma from Italy, and the English group, Frith Piano Quartet. During the daytime, the participating students engaged themselves in their respective lessons and rehearsals. After dinner, they attended evening concerts that were held every night.

The students from TUA were all exempt from the course fees, and they had to take turns to serve as a ticket collector and usher. They were given the opportunity to perform at the LDSM Academy Artists concerts in the latter half of the course on the recommendation of their tutors. In fact, the TUA students were regarded so highly that all of them were selected to perform at the public concerts featuring summer academy students. Particularly, the Quartet Arpa, the group consisting of the participating graduate students from TUA, received high acclaim from the tutors, along with the festival’s founder and Artistic Director Renna Kellaway MBE, who noted that the group was one of the most impressive ones among those emerging string quartets that had ever attended in the thirty-year history of the Lake District Summer Music. In the gala concert held on the last day, the string ensemble made up of selected members, including the 10 students from TUA, had the honor of closing the festival by performing works by Sibelius and British composer Benjamin Britten. The festival ended with a great success.

Other participating students, who came from Europe and Asia, as well as countries like New Zealand, talked about TUA students’ high-level performing skills and ability to concentrate and maintain discipline during a rehearsal. Some students even expressed interest in studying at TUA to an accompanying faculty member from TUA.

Because of the language barrier and unfamiliar surroundings, the TUA students initially tended to gather with other Japanese students. As they got used to the new environment, however, they seemed to be enjoying themselves, while playing chamber music with local and fellow international students, and interacting with them at a mealtime or at a pub. It is a great achievement that the students cultivated confidence and international experience through this program.