The inaugural Musikiwest ChamberFest will be launched in Pebble Beach, CA July 7-12, 2019 on the inspirational campus of the Stevenson School.

Musikiwest uses the collaborative nature of chamber music to build empathic awareness, an essential ingredient in being a great chamber musician. In our workshop, young aspiring chamber musicians will work alongside some of the most exciting musicians on today’s scene. Our musicians will share their tremendous talent and creativity as we explore masterworks of the repertoire. Equally as important, we will open the discussion on the tools available to collaborate with grace, flexibility and sensitivity. We will explore the means by which to identify an unhealthy collaborative experience and the skills available to address conflict resolution..

Our musicians share in the value and importance of building healthy collaborative experiences with young aspiring musicians. There is rarely time made in conservatories to address the emotional health of young musicians in the extremely competitive environment. At Musikiwest, we believe building the whole musician inside and out is essential to long term success.

Guest speakers and presenters, respected professionals in their field, will share insight into nurturing the whole musician, building trust, remaining physically healthy for a long career, mindfulness and coping with stress. The core group of musicians are violinists Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu and Siwoo Kim, violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist & composer Paul Wiancko, and cellist Michelle Djokic.  We will be opening our Musikiwest summer workshop with a presentation from Dana Fonteneau of the WholeHearted Musician and Jennie Morton founder of Healthy Performers.

We have selected four fellows to join us; 2 violinists from Cleveland Institute of Music, 1 cellist from the Curtis Institute of Music and 1 violist from the San Francisco Conservatory. The fellows have been carefully selected not only for their talents but because they all share a desire to pursue a career in chamber music. They will work side by side with the senior artists in a performance of the Dvorak Sextet and the Mendelssohn Octet. This collaboration will allow the senior artists to share some personal accounts of coping with dfficult situations that arise in rehearsals and put into practice what we have been discussing in the workshop on the healthy performers and positive collaborations all the while preparing these master pieces of the chamber music rep for a public performance. They will also be performing one string quartet on their own Out of TIme, by Jonathan Dove. This will afford them the opportunity to put into practice on their own the techniques we have been working on in the various workshops presented. We all share in this valuable experience thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and donors who share in our vision.

There will be opportunities on most days for the public to sit in on our workshops. In addition there will be two concerts presented, one on July 11 and one on July 12.

Thank you for your interest and continuing support Musikiwest’s efforts.