International Workshop

15th Annual International Workshop for Conductors
August 3 - August 19, 2005
Zlin, Czech Republic
with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra
Faculty: Kirk Trevor (Artistic Director); Mariusz Smolij

The International Workshop for Conductors (IWC) focuses on the technical aspect of conducting and the relationship between the physical communication of hands and body, to the musical desires of the conductor and the practical needs of the orchestra.

The interplay between three separate mental processes is the key to the ability to communicate with the orchestra at the highest level. Technique sessions will involve exercises for the body as well as the hands.

Each work to be conducted will be previewed by the faculty with a complete technical and musical analysis. Some works in each group will also include sessions with piano sextet or an elftet. These smaller ensembles enable the participants to work out some of their worrisome issues before they face the full orchestra.

After the participants have conducted the full orchestra each session is privately reviewed with faculty in order to set new goals for the next podium session.

This system of preview, small ensemble, orchestra and review has been the standard by which the IWC has established its reputation. Each participant goes through a step-by-step process over a two-week period, progressing towards the larger works in the repertoire, works which represent the greatest risks and rewards.

All participants are instructed on an individual basis, there is no competition and faculty teach each participant at his/her own level while endeavoring to take them to the next level and beyond.

The 17-day course (including arrival & departure days) is limited to two groups of 14 participants. All participants will conduct a string quintet, a chamber orchestra, and a full orchestra. Active participants receive:

The Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, founded in 1946 under the name Zlín State Symphonic Orchestra, is enjoying a rapidly expanding national and international reputation since the November revolution in 1989. New contacts with western countries have resulted in many international tours and recording opportunities. The BMF has been playing for conducting workshops since 1991.

Participation is limited to two groups of 14 active participants, with different repertoire for each group. Group placement is based on availability (first come, first served). Participants will be sub-divided into groups of seven (Groups A1, A2 and Groups B1, B2). Each piece to be conducted will be preceded by a preview session and some by string quintet as well. After each orchestral session, the faculty members will extensively review individual videotapes. A limited number of observers (without podium time) will be accepted. Observers will receive priority reservation as participants with podium time at subsequent workshops, if desired.

Repertoire: (subject to change)
Each group will study a cross section of repertoire from classical to modern. The repertoire has been chosen to allow for choices between works as well as the opportunity to repeat repertoire over two or more sessions.

GROUP A	GROUP B
Mendessohn: Symphony No. 4 in A Major	Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat Major
Suk: Serenade for Strings	Dvorak: Serenade for Winds
Beethoven: Prometheus Overture*	*Massenet: Intermezzo from Magnon Lescaut*
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture*	*Leoncavallo: Intermezzo from Pagliaci*
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue	*Verdi: Overture from La Forza del Destino*
Dvorak: Symphony No.6 in D Major (Mvts 1,2,3)	Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat Major
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Suite	Tchaikovsky: Symphony #4 (Mvts 1,2,3)
Franck: Symphony in D minor	Smetana: Vysherad, Moldau, Sarka (Ma Vlast)
	Respighi: Fountains of Rome
* Group A Participants choose one of the *marked works	Group B Participants chose one of the marked works

Note: Works may be carried over and conducted again at a later date if the participant wishes

Kirk Trevor is an Internationally known conductor and teacher. Kirk is a regular guest conductor in the world's concert halls. Music Director of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 1985, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra since 1988, and the Missouri Symphony since 2000 he is forging a strong musical partnership with two of America's leading regional orchestras. In Knoxville, he has broadened the musical spectrum of the Knoxville Symphony during his tenure, adding Pops, Family and Chamber Music series to the orchestra's season as well as the highly-acclaimed Clayton Holiday Concerts. He conducts more than 55 concerts every season with the Knoxville Symphony and the Knoxville Chamber Orchestra throughout East Tennessee. He has been recognized statewide as having brought a new awareness of classical music to the region. He won the Governor's Award for the Arts as well as numerous local awards during his tenure. In Indianapolis, Trevor has created a strong community identity for one of America's busiest Chamber orchestras. In addition to its 9 concert subscription series, the orchestra partners with nearly all of Indianapolis' major cultural institutions in the field of opera, ballet, chorus and the visual arts. Trevor was recognized for his outstanding contribution to the arts in the state of Indiana in 1997 in the House of Representatives.

Born and educated in England, Trevor trained at London's Guildhall School of Music where he graduated cum laude in cello performance and conducting. He was a conducting student of the late Sir Adrian Boult and Vilem Tausky. He went on to pursue cello studies in France with Paul Tortelier under a British Council Scholorship and came to the U.S. on a Fulbright Exchange Grant. It was in the U.S. that his conducting skills led him to positions as Assistant Conductor at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Associate Conductor of the Charlotte Symphony and finally in 1982 the Exxon Arts Endowment Conductor position with the Dallas Symphony. He conducted the Dallas Symphony in a wide range of concerts in the U.S. and abroad, working closely on recordings and musical projects with the late Eduardo Mata. He was subsequently named Resident Conductor through the 1987-1988 season. In 1990 he was again recognized as one of America's outstanding young conductors, winning the American Symphony Orchestra League's Leonard Bernstein Conducting Competition.

It has been Trevor's devotion to music education and his involvement in the training and development of new generations of listeners, players and conductors that he has developed a national following. He has been an innovator in developing concerts for young people that have an energy and relevance. With the Knoxville Symphony he has developed and piloted an STV (Symphony-TV) concert series for junior high school students. He has conducted numerous summer festivals for young musicians, including Sewanee, Dallas Summer Conservatory, Music in the Mountains and Litomysl in the Czech Republic. From 1990 until 1999 Trevor served as Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Tennessee, conducting the Civic Orchestra, the UT Opera and teaching Graduate Conducting.

Trevor is becoming widely recognized as one of the leading conducting teachers in the world. He has been a master teacher for the American Symphony Orchestra League as well as the Conductor's Guild. In 1991 Trevor co-founded and has been Artistic Director of the International Workshop for Conductors held in the Czech Republic for a month every summer. IWC is the world's largest conducting school, each year training over 80 conductors from 20 countries. He is a frequent guest teacher at Northwestern University and in Switzerland, annually giving a week of master classes at the Zurich and Basel Conservatories.

Trevor's relationship with the Czech and Slovak Republics continued, when in 1994 he was named Chief Conductor of the Martinu Philharmonic in Zlin and continues this season in the position of Principal Conductor. During his tenure he has made 10 recordings for Koch, Albany, Fatra, Crystal and Carlton Classics. He is committed to bringing American composers to disc, recording works by Joan Tower, David Ott, Victoria Bond, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Karel Husa, among others. In 2000 he added to his discography with a complete recording of Copland's opera "The Tender Land" for the composer's 100th anniversary, as well as the Duke Ellington piano concerto, concertos by Niblock and Chihara, and a new miscellany by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra.

In 2000 Trevor forged a new relationship with the famed Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava. With the SRSO he began a series of recordings of American music for the consortium of independent record companies. To date, he has made 7 albums of new American music as part of this ongoing project. Trevor was recently named Principal Guest Conductor of the SRSO, and in that capacity will lead the orchestra in 4 subscription programs and 6 recordings.

As a guest conductor he has appeared with over 40 Orchestras in 12 countries. Recent appearances included the Kosice Philharmonic, Estonian National Symphony, Slovak Radio Orchestra, Pardubice Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon, Virginia Symphony, Riverside Sinfonia in New Jersey, Missouri Symphony, Sofia Philharmonic and Bern Chamber Orchestra.

MARIUSZ SMOLIJ is considered one of the most exciting conductors of his generation. The American Symphony Orchestra League in New York included his name on the prestigious list of the most promising young conductors in America and featured him during its special Conductors Preview.

For over a decade, Mariusz Smolij has collaborated with some of the most acclaimed orchestras and musical institutions in the United States and Europe. He served as the conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra 1994-97, and led the ensemble to receive the highest accolades from critics and public alike in over a hundred and twenty performances. He also served on the faculty of the School of Music at Northwestern University in Chicago-Evanston as a professor of conducting and director of the chamber orchestra from 1996 and 2000. At that time he was the youngest full-time conducting faculty member among the top conservatories and universities in America. Most recently he served as the Resident Conductor of the Houston Symphony. He was invited to join this world class orchestra by Maestro Christoph Eschenbach after winning international auditions that attracted over 200 conductors. He led this orchestra in over one hundred thirty concerts presenting an impressive and wide gamut of orchestral repertoire.

In the year 2003, he became Music Director of the Acadiana Symphony in Lafayette, Louisiana. Since 1996, Maestro Smolij has also held the position of Music Director and Conductor of the Riverside Symphonia, a highly recognized professional chamber orchestra based in Lambertville, New Jersey.

Beginning with the 2002-2003 season, Maestro Smolij is closely associated with one of Eastern Europe’s most renowned orchestras, the Wroclaw (Breslau) Philharmonic in Poland. He has not only conducted this orchestra in Poland, but successfully led it during foreign tours in Germany (Rheingau Music Festival) and Czech Republic (Janacek Festival). A tour of the United Stated is planned for April 2005. He has been credited with restructuring the orchestra operations and its artistic season and with introducing innovative artistic concepts as well as new repertoire. Between 2002 and 2004 he presided over the International Festival Wratislavia Cantans as only the fourth Artistic Director in the 38 year history of this eminent institution.

Maestro Smolij has appeared as guest conductor with more than 50 orchestras around the world. In the United States, among others, he has conducted the Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Symphony II (Orchestra of the Lyric Opera in Chicago), St. Louis Philharmonic, Omaha Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, Missouri Symphony and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. In Europe, he led orchestras in Germany, France, Holland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Poland. In 2004 he appeared in the famous Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra, in 2002, he made his Paris conducting debut with the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux in the prestigious Salle Gaveau and in 2001, he made his highly acclaimed debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall with the Sinfonia Varsovia. His frequent collaboration with this premier Polish orchestra led to concerts on three continents; Europe, North America and Asia, and a series of recording projects featuring masterworks of Polish and American symphonic music. The first CD with music by Copland, Gershwin and Bernstein was released in July 2002.

Maestro Smolij has introduced many American audiences to several unknown works by Eastern European composers and regularly performs American orchestral music in Europe. In January 1996, he led the Polish Radio Orchestra in Krakow, Poland in an all-American program, which was broadcasted to several Eastern European countries. In 2001, he led a special gala performance of American symphonic music in the Hall of National Theater in Warsaw, Poland that was recorded and broadcasted by both Polish and American radio stations. His recording of music by American composer Bill Karlins was issued by the Hungaroton label in 2000. With the Wroclaw Philharmonic he gave European and Polish premiers of works by American composers such as Barber, Copland, Kernis, Rouse, Ellington and others. As an extremely effective advocate and promoter of Polish music outside of his native country, Maestro Smolij frequently performs and programs works of Polish composers and organized the Polish Music Festival in Chicago in1998, which was the single largest presentation of Polish music abroad in the last quarter of century.

Maestro Smolij’s reputation as a conducting pedagogue reaches both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to teaching the International Workshop for Conductors teaches at professional conducting seminars in the USA and Poland and was invited to present conducting master classes at the Zurich Conservatory in Switzerland.

Born near Katowice, Poland, Maestro Smolij is also an accomplished violinist and was the founder and violinist of the internationally recognized Penderecki String Quartet, performing and recording with this ensemble in Poland, Germany, France, Italy and the United States. After studies in Europe he studied conducting in the United States, and holds a doctorate degree from the Eastman School of Music.

Location
Zlin, Czech Republic
Zlin is located close to either Prague or Vienna and is easy to get to by train from either city. Zlin is the home of the Bohulsav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2005 the 2nd Annual Contemporary Music Workshop will also take place in Zlin.