The American Bach Soloists was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989 and has recently truncated its organizational name to simply American Bach. Their annual educational Academy Festival is also a bit truncated this summer as it gradually returns from the pandemic. There are still a number of attractions this week at this year's edition, held at the SF Conservatory of Music on Oak Street.They include a pair of faculty concerts and daily master classes at 2:30 and seminars at 4:15 by faculty musicians, which the public is invited to attend for free. Last Wednesday, Baroque violinist Robert Mealy was the seminar speaker.
The American Bach website billed Nealy's talk as “Graces Under Pressure” or, “If you can’t improvise, just make something up instead.” It also offered "a practical guide for how to accessorize your own adagios."
Mealy was a delight, mixing history, musical demonstrations, and hints on where, when and how over-the-top somebody might want to go with their Baroque ornamentation.
He mentioned that music education was passed down through families and guilds and not written down until "rich people" wanted to learm how to be musically graceful. Then there was a whole flurry of ornamentation manuals printed in 16th century Italy which Mealy recommended as still useful today for a student trying to build a personal musical vocabulary.
Attending this seminar felt a bit like being in a secret session for musicians teaching musicians and it was perfectly fascinating.
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