Multi-Style Strings Symposium 2023

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Multi-Style Strings Symposium 2023

This is a unique opportunity to explore Multi-Style strings repertoire, nontraditional techniques, different approaches to improvisation and incorporating technology under the guidance of some of the world's leading Multi-Style String virtuosos and educators.

NJCU Multi-Style Strings Summer Symposium
Aug 7 - 9, 2023

August 7, 8, 9: 10:00am - 4:00pm
August 9: 6:00 - 9:00pm

This year’s symposium is open to ALL string players (High School and up)

* Professional Development Credit available for Music Educators

REGISTER

Includes: 

  • Special Guest Artist Tracy Silverman
  • MultiStyle music reading sessions
  • Daily jam sessions
  • Grand Finale performance featuring Guest Artist and attendees

Daily Sessions:
Explore a variety of diverse repertoire, techniques, technology, and approaches to improvisation.

PLUS:
Exclusive Tracy Silverman Workshops including:

  • Grooving — awakening our inner sense of rhythm using Strum Bowing,
  • The Chop — non-pitched percussion sounds. 
  • Improvising — cultivating our natural curiosity and playfulness with fun improv games
  • Call and Response — ear training, rhythm training, style training
  • GPS for Strings (Groove Proficiency System) — Tracy’s 4 step formula for finding your way to any groove
  • Blues scale and the blues

Sneak Peak:
For a sneak peek on what to expect at this year’s symposium, check out “Turn the Groove Around! A Multi-Style Conversation with Tracy Silverman and Martha Mooke & friends” on our YouTube Channel.

Sponsors:

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FACULTY

Martha Mooke

MARTHA MOOKE PLAYING INSTRUMENT

Martha Mooke, acclaimed for her electrifying performances and compositions, is a pioneering electric violist/composer, highly regarded for her artistry, music advocacy, and innovative educational programs. She transcends musical boundaries, enhancing classical training with extended techniques, technology and improvisation.

A Yamaha Artist and Eventide’s first Artist in Residence, Mooke is a leading clinician on electric and multi-style string playing. She has performed with Barbra Streisand, David Bowie, Philip Glass, Elton John, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Andrea Bocelli, Tony Bennett and ongoing collaboration with Beat Box legend Rahzel.

She is Founder and Artistic Director of the Scorchio Quartet (featured on David Bowie's Heathen CD) which performs as resident quartet in the Tibet House Benefit Concerts at Carnegie Hall produced by Philip Glass.

Her catalog of works include solo, chamber, orchestra, concert band, film and theater with genre-defying recordings Enharmonic Vision, Bowing's Cafe Mars, and No Ordinary Window, produced by Grammy winning Producer, Cynthia Daniels.

Mooke received the prestigious ASCAP Concert Music Award for creating and producing ASCAP's new music showcase THRU THE WALLS featuring boundary defying composer/performers. She is a Governor of the New York Chapter of the Recording Academy serving on the Grammy in the Schools and Advocacy Committees. She is on the Executive Committee of the Composer Diversity Project, and Advisory Board of Composers Now.

Mooke is Coordinator of Strings at NJCU and Founder/Director of the cutting edge, Multi-Style Strings program.


Tracy Silverman

TRACY SILVERMAN PLAYING INSTRUMENT

Lauded by BBC Radio as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin”, Tracy Silverman is the world’s foremost electric violin soloist, bringing concert hall legitimacy to this next-generation instrument.

Pulitzer and Grammy award winning composer John Adams raves: “No one makes that instrument sing and soar like Tracy, floating on the cusp between Jasha Heifetz and Jimi Hendrix.

As part of Silverman’s vision for the “future of strings”, he has  premiered and recorded several major new electric violin concertos written specifically for him by composers John Adams (The Dharma at Big Sur), Terry Riley (The Palmian Chord Ryddle), Nico Muhly (Seeing is Believing), Roberto Sierra (Ficciones), Kenji Bunch (Embrace), and 3 concertos of his own; appearing with the LA Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and many others at Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, Royal Albert Hall, and stages all over the world.

Formerly first violinist with the innovative Turtle Island String Quartet, Silverman was named one of 100 distinguished alumni by The Juilliard School and is notable not only for his development and use of the electric 6-string violin, but also for what he terms “progressive string playing”, an evolution of classical string playing that embraces contemporary popular idioms such as rock, jazz and hip hop.

TV/internet and radio includes a solo Tiny Desk Concert on NPR, A Prairie Home Companion, Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday, and a profile on CBS News Sunday Morning.

A longtime proponent of string education, Silverman is a leader in the progressive string community and the host of The Greater Groove: The Future of Strings podcast. His Strum Bowing method has been adopted by players and teachers all over the world. Silverman is the author of The Strum Bowing Method: How to Groove on Strings, and The Rhythm String Player: Strum Bowing in Action, as well as several etude books and online courses on his Strum Bowing Groove Academy. Silverman is on the faculty of Belmont University in Nashville, TN.