Matt Albert, 41, knows how to pack a conservatory schedule.
Start the day with a one-hour group class. Follow up with a two hour orchestra rehearsal, reading through symphonic masterworks so you’ll be familiar with Brahms, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky before you’re out of your teens. Take a lunch break and then spend 90 minutes rehearsing with your new chamber ensemble. By mid afternoon, it’s time for a master class or student recital then your private lesson with a festival musician. A short break for dinner and it’s back to the recital hall for a faculty concert. Think you’re done for the day? Uh huh. Find a practice room for more work before hitting the sack.
That’s how a modern conservatory operates. And at Conservatory Music in the Mountains, now celebrating its 20th anniversary housed at Fort Lewis College, everything’s compressed into three intense weeks.
Founded by the late, esteemed Arkady Fomin in 1997, the Conservatory consistently grew in numbers and reputation. But when Fomin died suddenly May 5, 2014, the Conservatory’s future seemed in doubt. The Music in the Mountains organization brought the program in-house and scrambled to find students and secure faculty.
Fortunately, Fomin, who kept his illness secret, and Festival Artistic Director Gregory Hustis had predicted a need for an eventual transition to new leadership. Conversations with Albert had already taken place.
At the time, Albert was director of chamber music at Southern Methodist University with an illustrious career as an award-winning chamber musician and recording artist with three Grammys in his pocket.
“Greg talked to Arkady and me,” Albert said in an interview earlier this week. “Greg also talked with members of the Festival Board and Angie Beach, the executive director. Then Greg invited Arkady and me to dinner.”
The three men talked about the Conservatory’s past, future and a possible transition. Albert said he remembers clearly how proud Fomin was of the Conservatory.
“But he also said to me: Follow your own priorities. Create what works for you.”
Albert has followed Fomin’s advice by expanding the Conservatory’s offerings. The original focus was on strings and piano and had a distinct European flavor – masterworks of the past and a more top-down tone. Now Albert, the ultimate collaborator, has encouraged a lot of interaction.
Most notably, he’s added brass, woodwinds and percussion, resulting in a larger and more diverse faculty. It numbers 23 members, most of whom represent symphony orchestras all over the country and perform with the Festival Orchestra.
When enrollment dipped in that dark summer of change, Albert carried on. The 15 student musicians filled a van and went everywhere – to concerts as well as the mountains. The only casualty was the Concerto Competition, which Fomin began in 2009 with a donation from the Ballantine Family for prize money.
The next summer, Albert and key faculty recruited 50 students: “When we finally had a full year to plan,” he said, “we knew we could get back on our feet.”
This summer there are 61 students, and the concerto completion continues.
Albert has a clear vision of a modern conservatory and outlined his goals in our interview.
“First,” he said, “we pay strong attention to both orchestra and chamber music playing. Secondly, we now include all instruments, in addition to strings and piano, and third, we include new music in our programming and in compositional studies.”
The Conservatory is highly selective. Once accepted, student musicians not only have private lessons, master classes, and daily orchestral rehearsals, they are all placed in a chamber music group. Select students are chosen to play in weekly master classes or side-by-side with faculty in chamber recitals.
Albert has recently been named chairman of a new department at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Starting in September, he will head up the new chamber music department in Ann Arbor.
“The field offers tremendous educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for musicians,” notes the announcement in the summer edition of the U-M Alumnus magazine.
Asked if he would return to Durango and the Conservatory next summer, Albert said his Michigan commitment and contract will not interfere with his commitments here.
“Life is complicated. I’ve had to travel back and forth to Michigan this year, sell my condo in Dallas, settle up here in Durango and plan for the fall. Life is rich.”
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theater Critics Association.
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