National Orchestral Institute Brings Sparkle and Substance to Maryland

EIGHTEEN- TO 28-YEAR-OLD performers. A 19-city audition tour. A grueling selection process. No, it's not "American Idol," but the National Orchestral Institute, or NOI, at the University of Maryland School of Music. The program doesn't take the musicians to Hollywood, but NOI's consistently well-reviewed concerts-all open to the public and some free-demonstrate that it is turning out some of the orchestral world's newest stars.

From January through March, more than 600 young musicians applied to be a part of this summer's four-week institute. Only 85 to 90 are chosen to attend the program, covering orchestral performance, chamber music and professional development. A high percentage of the participants are studying at top conservatories and universities. In fact, many Maryland School of Music students and alumni are participating in the program. The goal of NOI is to prepare musicians for a career in music, says Managing Director Richard Scerbo '02, M.M. '04.

The program's alumni have gone on to win positions in almost all the major U.S. symphony orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. The program opens with a week of chamber music, a focus of the School of Music, and conductor-less chamber orchestras coached by notable players from the world of professional chamber music.

Photos by Stan Barouh

"Great musicians must have superior command of their instruments, but they must also possess welltuned interpersonal communication skills. In the conductor- less chamber music performances, the onus of responsibility is on our NOI students," says Scerbo, who studied bassoon and conducting with NOI Artistic Director James Ross at Maryland.

New for 2009, the New Lights Inaugural Concert will challenge a select group of 2008 NOI alumni, who will lead chamber groups of current participants. One such leader is Marybeth Brown-Plambeck, a cellist who attends the Cleveland Institute of Music. The NOI alumna is honored to be granted the leadership opportunity, and is "especially looking forward to learning and sharing modern music." The fresh sounds will feature music by living American composers including John Adams, Leon Kirchner and Christopher Rouse. "Participants come to perform the warhorses of music," says Scerbo, "but we also want to challenge them to perform works of our time."

Weeks two through four consist of full orchestral programs, led by renowned conductors and coached by some of the country's finest orchestral players, including 13 School of Music faculty members.

Throughout the program, guest speakers address topics from the practical to the enlightening. NOI students bone up on injury prevention, instrument repair, audition strategies and career management. They also discuss the issue of period practice, where they learn from university musicology scholars what musicians would have encountered at the time a piece of music was composed.

It all adds up to a program that grooms America's next generation of orchestral professionals, and in doing so, these art-makers sprinkle an extra dose of stardust on the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and on the university. -RR

For more information on the NOI, see Maryland Live or visit www.music.umd.edu.

For a calendar of NOI concerts and ticket information, visit www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu.

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