The Clinic is a two-day workshop for private and public music teachers interested in enriching their materials and pedagogical approaches for composition students. Sessions are organized to parallel the creative process (Step One: generating music ideas, Step Two: understanding and improving, and Step Three: finishing and polishing).
 
Master Teacher Tracey Rush leads the Clinic through a series of exercises, seminars, and roundtables that address the challenges of teaching composition in private lessons and music classes with beginning to advanced students. New this year, participants will have the opportunity to practice what they have learned with students from Junior Composer Studio that will be running concurrently with the Clinic. Each participant will receive a notebook of teaching materials and two composition workbooks.
 
At the conclusion of the Clinic, participants will be joined by guest composer Richard Marriott and Junior Composers staff members Seth Custer, Randall Davidson, and Pat Steege to discuss how to build a student’s portfolio in preparation for contests and college.
 
Special features this year will include a composition salon with guest composer Richard Marriott “discovering inspiration from visual stimuli” and a field trip to hear the Minnesota Orchestra’s “Night at the Ballet” performing excerpts from Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. There will be a backstage tour of Orchestra Hall before the concert.
 
Clinic sessions will be held at the University of Minnesota School of Music, Ferguson Hall. Get directions.