The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — After years of coming to the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory, the program’s senior students are set on what they want to do with their lives. They don’t just want to play music; they want to be musicians.

“I came here my first year — it must have been five years ago — and I think it was here that I realized how much I loved playing the cello, and that I really wanted to become a musician,” said Melanie Goldstein, a recent high school graduate from St. Louis.

The program, which takes six weeks to integrate classical music study with outdoor activities, physical conditioning, photography and other disciplines, concentrates on the music student as a person, said viola instructor Nancy Buck.

“We don’t want to be just one thing and have one dimension,” Buck said. “Part of that balance is not doing music 24 hours a day. We’re also committed to the whole person and not just the music in them, because you have to experience life to be able to represent all that music represents.”

That approach is what brought cello student Carlos Capilla from Mexico City to study in Steamboat Springs. For his first trip to the United States and his first outing to a summer camp, Capilla said he was drawn to the level of instruction and varied curriculum at the conservatory.

“This summer camp, I think it’s excellent, because it’s musicians in the whole meaning of the word. They teach us to play music and to live as a musician,” Capilla said. “We live as musicians here for six weeks, and I’m impressed because I have never seen that.”

Part of that atmosphere comes from the teamwork necessary to play chamber music, which challenges string players to work closely together and take ownership of their parts, instructors said.

“In an orchestra, it’s possible — though not advisable — to hide behind those playing around you. In chamber music, you’re expected to play your part,” said piano instructor Dan Velicer. “The need to play well in chamber music is a great experiential analogy to developing leadership skills.”

Students have embraced that teamwork and opportunity for leadership, with this year’s student faculty boasting recent acceptance to top schools such as Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Eastman School of Music.

“I think in the music world there is a lot of competition, over seats in orchestras and auditions, and that’s what we have to do. There’s not always going to be a positive environment,” Goldstein said.

“Here, we cooperate with our peers, and the faculty, they make it so we all help each other, and that’s very special.”