Summer Symposium: Chamber Music

perform in small musical groups

Students enrolled in the chamber music track will be placed in a chamber music ensembles (duo, trio, quartet, etc.) with other students at a similar playing level. Chamber groups will perform pieces from the standard repertoire. All experience levels welcome!

Throughout the day students will take part in chamber music enrichment classes, guided rehearsals, and coachings with faculty members. Learning chamber music helps students listen and respond to each other for timing and balance, & negotiate their interpretive choices as a collective. This is one of the most important & powerful ways to grow as a musician.

Program includes:

• Daily coachings from faculty

• Group classes and guest artist workshops with all symposium students

• Guided rehearsals with chamber group students

• Musical enrichment classes

• Mentorship support and connections

• Performance with recording in the summer symposium showcase

2025 Chamber track core faculty: Stephanie Nilles

Pianist composer/arranger and singer/songwriter Stephanie Nilles graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music with a BM in classical piano performance. She cut her songwriting and improvising teeth in New York City, then hit the road. She’s since performed all over the United States, Canada, and Europe, including at such esteemed chamber music, folk music, and jazz engagements as Stimmen Festival, Festwochen Gmunden, Calgary Folk Festival, the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, and Ingolstadt Jazz Festival, playing music in points as far west as Skagway, Alaska and as far east as Abu Dhabi. She's scored one movie, two silent films, and one radio drama; she's recorded six albums of original music, as well as one album of solo arrangements of the music of jazz behemoth Charles Mingus; and she's shared the stage with Bobby McFerrin, Jonathan Richmond, Judy Collins, and Buckethead.

Following a thirteen-year touring career (and a decade of living in New Orleans), she’s settled in the Portland neighborhood of Louisville, where she's on staff as piano accompanist at the University of Louisville and ghostwrites mystery novels.