Music
Chamber Music Opportunities
Junior Chamber Music
Los Angeles area and Orange County branches. Includes honor groups. Students receive eight coachings from world-class musicians and perform in a final concert, with master classes along the way.
Young Musicians Foundation
Ten coachings from leading professional musicians are free to students who audition into this selective program. Ensembles give two professional performances at the end of the school year. Other opportunities often arise for additional venues and community performances.
Summer Programs
Montecito International Music Festival
Our mission is to instruct, mentor and inspire the next generation of great musicians to improve their technical abilities and hone their craft and musicianship skills. The festival is held over four 10-day sessions at the beautiful campus of California Lutheran University, in Thousand Oaks California, close to Los Angeles, California’s sunny beaches and the many picturesque mountains and deserts of Southern California.
Idyllwild Arts Summer Programs
Discover the magic of an Idyllwild Arts summer, where students of all ages and abilities explore their bottomless creativity and build lifelong friendships with other passionate artists in a welcoming camp environment. Our engaging workshops and masterclasses are taught by renowned teaching artists, helping students simultaneously build skill and confidence.
Jazz in the Pines Student Clinic: Jazz thrives and grows when it is passed unselfishly from generation to generation. Come to the Idyllwild Summer Jazz Intensive and learn from a generation of greats. This two-week session is built around the return of Jazz In The Pines, giving students an exciting opportunity to learn from and see performances from Jazz greats in an intimate festival environment, a truly unique experience not offered at other camps.
Plug Into Songwriting: A perfect fit for beginning songwriters, this exciting summer music camp will teach you new skills and techniques to rapidly move your beginning songwriting skills to a more advanced level. Explore the craft of songwriting and immerse yourself in everything that is music. This is for students who are just beginning their songwriting journey and have less than 2 years of experience.
Piano Performance Intensive: An intensive music camp for advanced junior high and high school pianists, this workshop gives you the chance to focus and vastly improve your technique and performance skills in a rigorous and nurturing environment. An audition is required.
Songwriting Intensive: Perfect for intermediate and advanced songwriters, this exciting summer music camp will teach you new skills and techniques to rapidly improve your songwriting. Explore the craft of songwriting and immerse yourself in everything that is music. This two-week intensive is for students who have been practicing songwriting for at least 2 years and have several songs already written.
Instrumental Artist’s Intensive: The Idyllwild Arts Instrumental Artist’s Intensive offers a one of a kind opportunity for young artists to engage in a two-week deep dive into everything that a budding musician needs to shape a career in music and get an intimate look at what it’s like to be a part of the Idyllwild Arts Academy’s musical community. This comprehensive pre-professional ensemble experience allows students to immerse themselves in all facets of music making: Large Ensemble/Symphony/Symphonic Band/Chamber Winds, Small Chamber Ensemble, Chamber Music groups, and Solo Performance. Students will also participate in private lessons, masterclasses, and additional coaching opportunities throughout the program, as well as attend special performances by our seasoned faculty and special guests. An audition is required.
Southern California Chamber Music Workshop
The SoCal Chamber Music Workshop (SCCMW) is a 1-week workshop for adult amateur and professional chamber musicians, age 18 and above. Our participants include strings, piano, and winds. We gather for a week in July at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Musicians spend their days working on chamber music repertoire while receiving coaching to improve the quality of their musicianship in an ensemble. Our environment is welcoming, positive, and social while encouraging each musician to push beyond their limitations.
USC Summer Classes
USC offers several wonderful classes. Courses run 5-6 hours per day, and students receive instruction from professors and 3 USC elective credits upon completion. Students can choose to live on campus and live as a college student, or commute to classes.
Guitar Seminar: Jazz, Rock & Beyond: The “Guitar Seminar: Jazz, Rock, and Beyond” is an immersive musical journey studying the electric guitar at the renowned USC Thornton School of Music and its Studio Guitar Program. This comprehensive program explores every facet of guitar playing and music for young aspiring guitarists. During the seminar, students delve into theory, improvisation, technique, sight-reading, songwriting, and playing repertoire from jazz, rock, and beyond while focusing on stylistic interpretation. The seminar’s hands-on approach includes extensive lab sessions, where students break into smaller groups to practice and perfect new concepts with the guidance of skilled faculty and through clinics conducted by USC’s Studio Guitar faculty. Students will also embark on exciting field trips to Los Angeles’s iconic music venues. There will be no shortage of performance opportunities, from casual showcases of fresh material in front of your peers to evening concerts. The climax of the workshop will be two formal concerts open to family and friends, showcasing the incredible progress and new skills students have acquired. Repertoire and assignments are selected to challenge even the most advanced students, ensuring a transformative and enriching musical experience.
Musical Theatre: This summer, immerse yourself in music, movement (or dance), and play with the “Musical Theatre” course! In movement classes, you will be exposed to different styles of dance that will enhance your ability to tell a story physically. In song coaching classes, you will learn how to act the song and feel the music. Acting classes will be devoted to your personal connection to character and text and the basic principles of acting. The USC School of Dramatic Arts experience offers rigorous play and skills to celebrate your unique self through Musical Theatre.
Youth Orchestras
American Youth Symphony
The American Youth Symphony’s mission is to inspire the future of classical music by providing landmark fellowships to virtuosic young adults and exceptional, innovative, and free concerts to the Los Angeles community.
Competitively selected, our orchestra is comprised of 100 musicians who represent extraordinary talent from all over the world. By offering our community remarkable concerts at world-class venues, we remain committed to creating access and opportunity for everyone to experience the inspiration of this beautiful art form. The deadline for auditions are usually in August (official date to be released in May 2024).
Young Musicians Foundation instrumental ensembles
The Community Music Academy is a tuition-free music instruction and performance program open to students in K-12. Students at any level of experience or skill can receive responsive small group instruction in the instrument of their choosing, including violin, harp, guitar, flute, clarinet, recorder and trumpet. Participants also have the opportunity to perform at various community events.