Collegium
Click here for VCM Collegium Final Performances 2020
The VCM Collegium has moved ONLINE!
In response to the threat of Covid-19, in order to keep everyone safe and still moving ahead in their music practice, we welcome the Collegium community to Virtual Collegium!
Instrumental Chamber coachings will be translated to solo coachings and perhaps online group sessions.
For Masterclasses, Artistic Director Simon MacDonald has contacted our upcoming clinicians and they have all agreed to work on some online version for the students involved. The clinicians still scheduled for masterclasses are violist Yariv Aloni (March 30), violinist Jonathan Crow (April 20), pianist Philip Chiu (April 20), and pianist Milton Schlosser (April 27). For those who are assigned to play, make sure that you are prepared! We do not know yet whether this will include audience or not… stay tuned!
For those students with Collaborative Coaching sessions, likewise, these will now be accomplished online. Please get in touch with your assigned coach to arrange the sessions and the platform you will use.
Singers will have online coachings as well as special opportunities to work with Alison Greene on character analysis and some movement, working with the text (and perhaps some singing). Alison typically includes this kind of work with the Opera Studio singers involved in a full production, but there isn’t usually time for it in Collegium; a bonus!
We are working on various software platforms: Skype, Facetime and Zoom for example. If you know of a brilliant way of connecting virtually between groups and coaches – please let us know. This time of restricted movement is a great time for students to get more acquainted with their instrument, repertoire and the various new technology options open to us; and to make music practice a rewarding structure of the days and weeks ahead.
Auditions for next year will go ahead (via video if necessary), application deadline remains May 10th. Click here for the Application Form.
With luck, we can keep the momentum going, and the VCM can stay in the unique position of not shutting down when everything else has.
Simon MacDonald, Collegium Artistic Director
Ingrid Attrot, Head, Voice Collegium
Micki Stirling, Collegium Manager
“If you dream of pursuing performance as a career, The Young Artists Collegium at the VCM will give you a distinct advantage. If you aren’t dreaming of pursuing performance as a career, the discipline, dedication, and problem solving skills learned in the Collegium will benefit you for the rest of your life. “
~Simon MacDonald
So what does the word ‘Collegium’ mean?
‘Collegium’ comes from the same Latin roots as ‘colleague’. The Collegium Musicum was one of several types of musical societies that arose in German and German-Swiss cities and towns during the Reformation and thrived into the mid-18th century. Both Bach and Telemann directed these groups in Leipzig.
The VCM Collegium program provides colleagues or peers for these exceptional young musicians, supporting and challenging them to become the best they can be, in music and in life.
The Young Artists Collegium Program
Nurturing excellence in a community of emerging musicians
Collegium is an enriched program for talented young classical musicians – singers, pianists and other instrumentalists – brought together with outstanding teachers to create a lively, collaborative educational experience devoted to the pursuit of musical excellence.
Collegium Chamber Music Concert – May 14, 2019
Collegium is designed for serious students who want to study music at the highest standard in a comprehensive setting.
Founded in 2006, the Collegium includes students studying piano, violin, viola, cello, voice, flute, oboe, clarinet, and guitar. Instrumental Collegium applicants must have achieved at least the Grade 9 RCM level; Junior Collegium is for players in Grades 6-9. Placement is based on yearly auditions.
The Collegium is an academic year program, running from September to May with auditions the previous May.
Students participate regularly in master classes, chamber music, working with accompanists, lectures and performing events.
The Collegium program is highly successful and rated among the best in the country. Our students have won top prizes in the local, provincial and national music festivals. Students’ solo playing is on a similar level, winning many local and provincial festival awards. Our graduates have earned placements at UVic, McGill University, Robert McDuffie School, New England Conservatory, Curtis Institute and at the Juilliard School of Music.
For more information contact or to become a supporter:
Simon MacDonald, Artistic Director | macdonald@vcm.bc.ca | 250.386.5311 ext. 2090
Ingrid Attrot, Voice Collegium Director | sops@shaw.ca | 250.386.5311 ext. 3080
Micki Stirling, Animateur | stirling@vcm.bc.ca | 250.386.5311 ext. 3360
Application deadline for 2020/21: May 10, 2020
Audition dates: May 26-June 1, 2020
Click HERE for information on programs and how to apply