If Robert Mann has his way, the Young Artists Institute now being organized at the Ravinia Festival could set the American classical performance community on its collective ear.
Mann, perhaps best known as a violinist, founder and sole remaining original member of the Juilliard String Quartet, last year was named artistic director of the institute, which is scheduled to have its first session in June 1988, as a major expansion of the festival`s educational activities. (For the last 14 years Ravinia has presented a series of piano master classes in conjunction with Northwestern University.)
Although many of the specifics of the Young Artists Institute program are yet to be worked out by Mann and Ravinia executive director Edward Gordon
(whose brainchild the institute is), Mann eagerly took advantage of a recent opportunity to discuss his overall vision for the program and to point out what he believes will make the Ravinia institute fundamentally different from the young performers programs at Aspen, Tanglewood and other major American summer festivals.
”When my friend Ed Gordon asked me last summer if I would be interested in running the institute, I said yes–but only under the right
circumstances,” said Mann, 66, surveying the concrete-and-steel shell of the structure now rising at the southwest corner of Ravinia Park, and that is expected to be completed by the start of the summer season in late June 1987. ”I wasn`t interested in putting together just another summer school where young students flock to the same teacher with whom they study in winter. For them that kind of thing is a kind of lark rather than a serious exploration of where they are at in music.
”I hoped the institute would be like a research center, a kind of way-station where young performers who already have one foot in the career door could ask themselves, `Am I on the right track? Is this where I`m headed?` The focus of our inquiry would be on the performance experience, not instrumental study.
”Ed told me that coincided perfectly with his thinking. So I accepted the job, and since then he has given me pretty much carte blanche. When I presented my vision of the program at last year`s annual meeting, the reaction of the board was very enthusiastic.
”Basically, our objective as the institute grows and develops will be to examine all the peculiar and esoteric problems of the craft and profession of musical performance. We are particularly interested in finding out those qualities that help to create a performance that is truly gripping and special –the kind of performance that everyone responds to, whether he is a serious listener, or just wishing to be entertained.”
Mann said that about 25 young artists, aged 18 to 32, will be selected for the program on the basis of applications, audition tapes and personal interviews held nationwide. The screening process will begin early in 1987 and a final selection made after interviews with prospective enrollees next fall in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
Because of the focus of the Ravinia program, only a special type of young musician will be considered for admittance: serious, highly motivated, receptive to new ideas and approaches. Much the same qualifications apply to those chosen as ”resource artists”–Mann`s term for the five faculty musicians who will work intensively with the chosen students for the initial institute session in 1988.
”As a performer and teacher I have never tried to pretend I was anything that I wasn`t,” said Mann, a 40-year veteran of the Juilliard School faculty in New York, who by his own estimate has taught or coached literally thousands of young string players. He also serves as president of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, which sponsors an annual competition for young instrumentalists and singers. ”There is no false pride or mystery about my art; therefore, there`s a good one-to-one relationship in my teaching. I believe that the cadre of artist/teachers that I have chosen for 1988 is capable of that, too.”
Several of the institute`s ”first team” of resource artists are individually familiar to the Ravinia public from guest appearances in past seasons. The 1988 cadre will comprise Mann and his son Nicholas, violins;
Thomas Rybl, viola; Bonnie Hampton, cello; and Stephen Hough, piano. The idea, said Robert Mann, was to have a string quartet and pianist to mirror the young people`s groups. These resident artists will introduce themselves as a body to Ravinia audiences in chamber music concerts during the 1987 season.
”We will, of course, insist that every person whom we accept into the program is a superior musician with some formal concert experience who is committed to a performing career,” said Mann. ”Not every young artist must show superstar potential. I have found that those who make the best careers are those who don`t have defensive egos, who don`t shut out what their colleagues are doing. So, in a sense, our first qualification for admittance is an openness and an ability to absorb.
”This is an opportunity for serious young artists to work without pressure or duties–no orchestra, no rehearsals, no distractions.
Lucy Rowan (Mrs. Robert Mann) will serve as the program`s executive administrator. Gordon said he hopes to involve Northwestern University in the institute activities, but could not specify what form that involvement would take. The key to the success of the program, he feels, is flexibility, of being able to adapt to the students` needs, and their ability, in turn, to be open with their peers: ”We like the idea of a not highly structured, `master class` approach.”
Mann and Gordon agreed that the safest policy for the institute was to start small. So the enrollment for 1988 has been restricted to piano, violin, viola and cello. ”I apologize to all the singers and wind players for not including them at the beginning,” said Mann. ”We couldn`t include every instrument and voice the first year; we didn`t want to be too ambitious right away. So this, in a sense, is the basic yeast–how it rises will allow us to add other ingredients.”
Performance, of course, will be a major component of the institute. While the major concern will be solo repertoire, Mann expects the students and faculty in various combinations will present five chamber music concerts a week during the first institute session in 1988–double concerts on Saturdays and Sundays, and one concert during the week.
Physically, the Young Artists Institute facility will include a 450-seat, acoustically adaptable concert hall for performances and master classes, 12 practice and teaching studios, administrative offices and an audio-visual room.
Escalating construction costs this year brought the institute budget up from about $3 million to $8.5 million, $2 million of which has been earmarked for endowment. However, Gordon says he is confident Ravinia will have raised more than $7 million in contributions by the annual meeting Dec. 14 of the Ravinia Festival Assn.
Eventually, as the institute begins to spread its wings, Mann would like to make room in the summer program for older musicians who might be
”established” in a conventional sense, but who find themselves mired in a career trough. ”There are many enormously gifted people who spend their entire lives going nowhere, and not knowing why. The problem is a major one, yet it`s something no teacher or manager wants to address.
”Also down the road we might tackle the aesthetics of how musicians play sonatas together, how they play concertos with an orchestra. Everything is fair game. Perhaps we should have parents involved, too. How important are they in the growing awareness of a young concert artist? What an idea!
”I hope, in short, that the program will become a role model for other institutions and that it will give young artists an appraisal of what they are about and a perspective on how they are going about it. This is a rare opportunity for young musicians to become more realistic about what they can accomplish in their profession. I think it`s a prime need in the world. Chicago can be proud if we are successful.”
