Goshen College Strings Camp
Camp Dates: June 9-14 (day camp)
Registration Deadline: Friday May 31
Tuition: $250 (scholarship available for Reduced/Free Lunch)
Registration Fee: $25 (waived if registering by May 1!)
Age: rising 6th grade through 2024 HS grads
Eligibility: Must have two years of playing experience and note-reading ability
Special Repertoire: Students will bring a polished solo piece to perform
Lunch and snacks are provided!
CSA Strings Camp
Calling all strings players! Looking for a summer camp to hone your skills, learn some exciting chamber and large ensemble music, develop your fiddle-playing expertise in a group, perform in Goshen College’s Rieth Recital Hall and in downtown Goshen, and make friends with other musicians? Are you between 6th (rising) and 12th grade? Then the 2024 Goshen College Strings Camp is the place for you! Come join us Sunday June 9 through Friday June 14 for a day camp at the Goshen College Music Center. The camp is hosted by the Goshen College Music Department and the GC Community School of the Arts, and all events on campus will be free and open to the public.
The 2024 Goshen College Strings Camp kicks off on Sunday June 9 with a Faculty Recital, featuring violist and Strings Camp director Dr Rosalyn Troiano, along with Piano Camp faculty Dr Matthew Hill, and Drs Luke and Mary Rose Norell. On Monday June 10, Piano Camp Guest Artist Dr Garik Pedersen will present a recital, and on Tuesday June 11, Strings Camp Guest Artist Dr Solomia Soroka will perform with colleague Dr Matthew Hill. Guest instructors will offer special coaching and masterclass instruction to chamber groups and soloists. The large ensemble will be led by YHO conductor Nathan Berkey. Students will be assigned music for chamber and large ensembles, as well as fiddle repertoire (new for 2024!), to learn and perform over the course of the camp with fellow campers. There will be performance and masterclass opportunities for students with the polished solo piece they bring to camp. Student performances include a final large ensemble performance in Rieth Recital Hall (June 14), daily masterclass performances for guest and camp faculty, and a special field-trip performance in a special location TBA (June 13).
Each morning, students will take part in music courses (Music History, Music Theory, and Musicianship), have individual and chamber music practice sessions, and engage in social activities around campus. The afternoons will consist of chamber coachings, fiddle sessions, and large ensemble rehearsal time, as well as special events, such as the guest masterclass, Guest Artist recitals, field trip performance and final camp recital.
NEW for 2024: Beginning Fiddle Tunes for Strings, with Sadie Gustafson-Zook! For centuries people have been playing fiddle tunes in social settings, enjoying opportunities for collaboration, learning by ear, and improvisation! In this class led by Sadie Gustafson-Zook, students will work their listening skills as they learn standard fiddle tunes by ear. Using these tunes students will learn a few typical old-time fiddle bowing techniques, such as the shuffle, double stops, and more. Although a “fiddle” is commonly thought of as a violin (or a style played on a violin), violists, cellists, and bass players can also learn fiddle tunes, and can even play special roles within a fiddle tune jam! All strings are welcome to these daily sessions, as students prepare music to share at the final concert!
Tuition is $250, with financial aid available for those who qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch. Lunch in the GC cafeteria and snacks are provided. The Registration fee is $25, but will be waived if registering on or before May 1. The Registration deadline is Friday May 31. Eligibility is rising 6th grade through 2024 high school graduates, with a prerequisite of two years of playing experience and note-reading ability.
GC Strings Camp Guest Artist Dr Solomia Soroka, violin
Violinist Solomia Soroka, born in L’viv, Ukraine, made her solo debut at age 10, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the L’viv Philharmonic Orchestra. Her playing combines the powerful background of the Ukrainian system with a passionate exploration of lesser played music, especially Ukrainian and American.
She has appeared as soloist and as chamber musician at concerts and festivals in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine, USA, Canada, China, Korea, and Taiwan. She is praised for being “a truly wonderful musician” (The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand), her “technical mastery…ferocity, light and mystic lyricism” (Daily Freeman, New York), and as one who “plays with great warmth and authority” (BBC Music Magazine). She has performed with orchestras in Ukraine, Australia, and the United States.
Ms. Soroka has performed premieres of a number of important contemporary Ukrainian compositions for violin, including works by Borys Lyatoshynsky, Myroslav Skoryk and Yevhen Stankovych.
Since her U.S. debut in 1997, she has performed throughout the United States. Her recitals in Washington DC were part of the Smithsonian Institute performing arts series and she received the following review in the Washington Post:
“Soroka is a superbly equipped violinist, at ease with the technical challenges of Sarasate or of Jeno Hubay’s Czardas No. 2, but even more impressive in the gentler moments…. Her tone is warm and mellow on the low strings, brilliant on the high strings, perfectly controlled and expressively used.”
Solomia Soroka has toured and recorded extensively with her husband, the pianist Arthur Greene. Their Naxos recording of Four Violin Sonatas by William Bolcom was selected as Recording of the Month with the highest ranking for both artistry and sound quality by Classics Today, and received reviews in various distinguished journals:
“Another virtuoso piece…confidently delivered by this brilliant duo” (Gramophone)
Their recording of the violin sonatas of Nikolai Roslavets, also for Naxos, has received international attention. “Soroka seemed utterly confident, catching a haunting, languid quality within Roslavets’s elusive harmonic idiom……” (The Strad)
In the past ten years Soroka has been recording for Toccata Records, based in London, where she made six premier recordings, of music by American composer Arthur Hartmann, Ukrainian Myroslav Skoryk, Mykola Lysenko, and Yevhen Stankovych, and Holocaust composers Leone Sinigaglia and Bernhard Sekles.
Solomia Soroka is currently a violin professor at Goshen College, Indiana, and interim professor at the Bowling Green State University. She is the artistic director of the Sherer Violin/Piano Competition for young musicians and the artistic director of the multicultural series “Musical Evenings at the Ukrainian Museum” in Detroit. Ms. Soroka has served on the faculty of chamber music at the Kiev Conservatory, and has taught at the Music Fest Perugia in Italy, the Castleman Quartet Program, Pilsen Summer Academy, Schlern Music Festival, and Vivace International Festival. She is active giving masterclasses in her native Ukraine, USA, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Czech Republic, and Italy.
She studied with Hersh Heifetz, Bohodar Kotorovych, Liudmyla Zvirko and Charles Castleman.