Everyone involved was excited and nervous during the first few days of Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy (PRISMA). The annual event began Monday, June 13, with rehearsals, master classes and recitals, and continues with various events and concerts through Saturday, June 25.
According to PRISMA administrators, who have been through it all before, the 70 students, plus faculty, staff and volunteers, will carry those feelings through to the end.
PRISMA executive director Michelle Hignell said running the festival becomes easier every year.
“It feels a bit smoother,” said Hignell. “Every year we have more people who have done it before and I feel the difference.”
Attending PRISMA for the first time, Texas-born Cullen Lucas said he is nervous and excited. One of only four students selected from 17 applicants to study conducting, Lucas joins Tamara Dworetz from Atlanta, Alaska’s Daniel Wiley and Jessica Morel from Indiana to learn under PRISMA’s music director and conductor Arthur Arnold.
According to Arnold, the experience for this quartet of conductors is different than other musicians attending PRISMA, because they are unable to practise their instrument before arriving.
“When you are a violinist, a pianist, any instrument, you have your instrument with you all the time,” said Arnold. “You have your music, you go to the piano, or you take your violin and you practise your piece.”
An orchestra conductor’s instrument is the orchestra, he said.
“You need to get opportunities to learn how to play your instrument, how to conduct an orchestra,” said Arnold. “You need to do it.”
That is why young conductors and musicians come from all over to do it, he said.
Lucas comes to PRISMA from University of Arizona, where he is studying for a doctorate of musical arts in conducting; he has been conducting for eight years.
Lucas said he is interested in working with all programs, from high school and college to amateur orchestras, all the way up to the professional level.
He took to the podium before the full PRISMA orchestra on Monday, June 13.
“Whenever I get in front of a group for the first time, I always have butterflies in the stomach,” said Lucas. “It’s not like a scared nervous; it’s more of this nervous excitement.”
While confident in his skills as a conductor, Lucas said, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous.”
There is always a period at the very beginning of any collaboration where musicians are learning each others’ styles, he said.
“I’m trying to get a feeling of what sounds they are putting at me,” said Lucas. “It takes a little bit of time early on.”
Lucas said he is most excited to work with Arnold, as well as the renowned faculty and calibre of musicians who attend festivals such as PRISMA.
