Follow-up - SFCM Students in Paris
The European American Musical Alliance (EAMA) Summer Institute is one of the most sought-after summer music programs on offer. Since EAMA's inception in 1995, dozens of students have converged on the Schola Cantorum in Paris each year to take part in an intensive musical course of study, honing their craft as performers and composers and pushing themselves to advance their artistry to the next level. At the Summer Institute, students take classes in counterpoint, harmony, analysis, and musicianship, and get personal instruction in composition, conducting, and chamber music performance. Over 30 SFCM students have attended EAMA in past years.
SFCM composition faculty member David Conte has been teaching at EAMA's Summer Institute since 2010. "The French method of training composers as exemplified by the Paris Conservatory, founded in 1795, is the longest unbroken tradition of composition pedagogy in the West," says Conte, referring to the unique characteristics of instruction at EAMA's Summer Institute. "Nadia Boulanger, who was a classmate of Ravel and student of Fauré, comes out of this tradition. The EAMA program represents the most loyal and authentic legacy of continuing Nadia Boulanger's teaching methods that exists. Most music school curriculums are unable to provide enough time to master these skills at the level demanded by Nadia Boulanger and her predecessors. EAMA seeks to impart this information to its students and represents the most organized and thorough program available."
"EAMA was definitely a life changing experience, and through its rigorous training, it taught me the craft I needed to learn to make my music stronger and more timeless," says undergraduate SFCM composition student Molly Monahan ('20). "It truly immersed me in the same teachings as the great composers of the past more than any other program I've been to. EAMA introduced me to a musical legacy and gave me the techniques to be a better composer and musician."
The EAMA Summer Institute takes place at Paris's Schola Cantorum, a setting of great importance in music history. Musical icons who have studied or taught at Schola Cantorum include Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, Edgard Varèse, David Diamond, Bohuslav Martinů, and Isaac Albéniz.
