In July of 2024, I participated in the Musical Academy held in Vernon and Giverny, France, where I had the privilege of performing in masterclasses led by Michel Strauss and Jan-Ype Nota.
The festival attracted students from fourteen different nationalities from all over the world and featured a week of intensive masterclasses and rehearsals, which took place in beautiful quaint houses in Giverny, once a home of the renowned painter Claude Monet, and the Music Conservatory of Vernon, a village upon the Seine river.
During the Academy, I undertook the task of arranging movements from a Bach suite for three cellos, which was performed alongside fellow students. We were also given the opportunities to rehearse and perform in various settings, including ensemble work with Jan-Ype Nota and many international cellists, as well as playing together with Tomoki Akiyama, a fantastic pianist from the Conservatory of Paris.
The festival concluded with two concerts in the main hall of the Vernon Conservatory, in which I performed as the first cellist in David Popper’s Requiem and showcased my own arrangement of Bach’s 2nd Minuet from the Suite in G major for three cellos. It was an incredibly fruitful experience for my musical journey, in which I was given the opportunity to use the different fields in my studies and share them together with many fantastic musicians from all over the world.