Composition for String Quartet
Summer Program in Greece
Athens-Amorgos
Sponsored by:
Berklee College of Music Professional Writing and Music Technology Division
The Professional Writing and Music Technology Division is presenting a Summer Program in Composition for String Quartet. The intensive, one-month long course will take place in Greece and will be taught by Berklee College of Music professor Panos Liaropoulos.
Since the summer of 2015, professor Liaropoulos has been leading a group of Berklee students in this inspiring program that takes place in Athens and in Amorgos Island, in Greece.
The Summer Program in Greece is an academic program in the form of a Directed Study course, for which students receive credit towards their degree at Berklee College of Music. All undergraduate and graduate students of all Majors are eligible and encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to Composition and Film Scoring Majors.
The goal and expected outcome of this program is the composition of a String Quartet, which will be performed, videotaped, and recorded in Athens.
While intensely focusing on the coursework, students have the opportunity to get inspired by their immersion to Greek culture, past and present.
The Summer Program also seeks to introduce students to Greece’s rich historical heritage, as well as to the vibrant world of contemporary Greek culture, musical and other, offering them a unique cultural experience that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Students meet with the instructor for twelve private hourly lessons in Athens and in Amorgos island.
Three additional weekly group meetings take place, in which analytical and historical perspectives regarding the evolution of the String Quartet genre are presented.
During the last week of the program, students participate in a 15-hour Workshop in which they have their pieces reviewed and read by the L’ Anima String Quartet. The Quartet is present throughout the duration of the Workshop and also performs all students’ works in a public concert in Athens, presented during the last week of the program.
All works are videotaped and recorded during the concert.
ATHENS
While in Athens, students participate in, at least, three different professionally guided tours that include the Acropolis and the New Acropolis Museum, the Athens Archaeological Museum, the Athens ancient “Agora,” the temple of Poseidon in Sounion—the southernmost part of the Attica peninsula, and an excursion to Delphi, where they visit the temple of Apollo, and the Delphi Museum.
Additional activities organized by the instructor of the course include attending Athens Festival events, and touring more contemporary areas of the city with a rich artistic and musical life.
AMORGOS
Amorgos is the easternmost island of the Greek Cyclades island complex, and the nearest island to the neighboring Dodecanese island complex.
Amorgos features remnants of ancient civilizations including the early Cycladic period (3200-2000 BC) and the Classical Period (fifth and fourth Century BC).
Interestingly, one of the most important Greek Composers of the 20th Century, Iannis Xenakis, built a house there in 1966 that features pioneering architectural characteristics, relative to his musical style of the period.
While in Amorgos, students visit sites of archaeological interest, visit nearby islands, attend the local festival, and get introduced to the rich folk music tradition of the Aegean islands.
