Are you familiar with MTNA’s Studio Festival program? Today was Studio Festival in my studio. I’ve been doing Studio Festival in my studio for close to 10 years now if I remember correctly; pretty close to when MTNA introduced the program. Studio Festival is MTNA’s “Music for Everyone” program they developed which allows teachers to have a base program to start with and run with it. Teachers can make this event as simple or as big as they want.
On their website they explain the purpose of the program…
– To provide the teacher and the teacher’s students with an opportunity to participate in a nationally sponsored program that is open to students of all ages and level of advancement, and that is implemented by the teacher’s own studio.
– To provide a performance opportunity that is simple, convenient and at little or no cost to the individual teacher and at reasonable cost to the student.
– To provide an incentive for practice as well as an incentive for selection of appropriately challenging repertory.
– To provide an opportunity for students to receive supportive critique from a musician in addition to the student’s teacher, but from a musician of the teacher’s own choosing.
– To provide national recognition to individual students, teachers and judges for participation in a non-competitive event.
– To provide a performance opportunity for students in geographical areas where performance opportunities are not readily available.
From the same webpage you can download a free starter kit to help you get started on this event in your studio!
In my studio I have my students work towards a medal by memorizing two pieces and receiving a postive evaluation. This is my basic criteria that I have for my students. The beauty of this program is you can have your own criteria and recognition. MTNA now even provides the certificate template to print out for free! In the past you ordered the dcertificates and medals.
Studio Festival is the perfect program for students that aren’t quite ready for graded adjudicated events, or perhaps the student that would like to get a taste test for what an adjudicated event is like and even for those who just don’t have the desire to participate in graded adjudicated events. It gives students an opportunity to receive an evaluation and feedback from someone in a little more relaxed (not so scary) environment. Plus it’s REAL nice for students to get feedback from someone besides their teacher they hear from week after week. I personally collaborate with a collegue on this event each year and we evaluate eachothers students. It works really well.
If you do the Studio Festival program in your studio, I would love to hear how you run your festival!
Thank you so much for the tip on this information! I printed out the kit and I’m really considering doing one! I just had a few more questions…Did you require the students to use certain repertoire? How did you choose your judge? Is the judge another piano teacher or musician of another instrument? How many of your students choose to partcipate and what is the average cost per student (in your experience)? Sorry…lots of questions. If you prefer you can send them to my email at [email protected]. Thanks, Jennifer!
I didn’t require the students to use certain repertoire. Matter of fact, I almost prefer them to use what they are working on in their lessons for the most part so they can get feedback on those “core” pieces. I have a piano teacher friend of mine judge my students and I judge hers, works really well. I have 27 students (not counting my adults) right now and I had 15 participate. I’ll email more in a bit…