Music department partners with Annie Moses Band to hold national fine arts academy
Brittney Buhlig |
In a first for Nashville, the Lipscomb University Music Department is playing host to the Fine Arts Summer Academy (FASA), a national summer intensive program for young artists, July 10-26. About 250 young performers ranging in ages from 4 to 20 are attending the Academy, spending each day in classes designed to build their technical skills and prepare them for performances at the end of the academy.
A number of Lipscomb faculty are teaching in the academy, and this is the first time the five-year-old academy has been held at a university and included university professors as teachers.
FASA is offered in tracks of specialized study and participants choose one specific area of study based upon their area of expertise. Tracks of study are offered for the instrumental arts: strings, brass, woodwinds, guitars, drums/percussion, and piano, in addition to the musical theater arts: dance, drama and vocal. For students interested in the ins and outs of show production they also offer the technical arts: sound, lighting and video.
“It’s been wonderful. It’s a great bunch of kids in a wide range of ages. The students have come from California, Canada, Texas and many other places,” said Jerome Reed, Lipscomb’s artist-in-residence who has been teaching piano technique and composition to the 18 students in the piano track.
The Fine Arts Summer Academy is the flagship showcase of the Annie Moses Band, a Nashville-based, classically trained family ensemble who plays a unique blend of classical and contemporary.
Bill and Robin Wolaver are a pianist and vocalist who worked as staff writers for Word Music. Their children -- Annie, Alex, Benjamin, Gretchen, Camille, and Jeremiah, ranging in age from 24 to 10 – have been classically trained at Julliard and Blair Schools of Music and Cincinnati College’s Conservatory of Music. The family began performing as an ensemble in 2000.
The Academy concludes with the final gala concert performance, where accomplished solo artist Michael O’Brien will bring his skill to the stage. A former lead singer for the award-winning group, New Song, Michael has been featured on numerous hit singles including the chart-topping duet with Natalie Grant, “When God Made You.”
Bill and Robin Wolaver will write a customized musical variety show for the gala concert designed with the specific artistic and musical skills of the attendants in mind. The final show will be a thematic presentation featuring the “best of” track performances, as well as new music featuring all students as a group.
The final gala performance allows students to “experience playing in a professional, top-notch show,” said Sally Reid, chair of the Lipscomb Department of Music. In addition, at the academy students “get training with some world-class performers,” she said.
PBS Special Filming taped the Annie Moses Band in performance in Lipscomb’s Collins Alumni Auditorium for a Christmas special that will air on PBS stations nationwide.
In addition to providing top-quality instruction to young musicians from across the nation, Reid hopes the academy will introduce youngsters to Lipscomb’s high-quality instruction and encourage them to come to Lipscomb for college, especially since the department plans to start an orchestra in the coming fall semester. That goal benefitted from the fact that several incoming Lipscomb students received scholarships to the Fine Arts Summer Academy.