The Rothrock Family Fund for Experiential Learning in the Performing Arts, established in 2011, supports opportunities that broaden the scope of Middlebury students’ experience in the performing arts. The “Rothrock Residencies” assist the series in its goal of creating a greater connection between Middlebury students and our visiting artists.
The fund supports series residencies as well as the
Student Supported Rothrock Residency program
in which students can propose an artist residency themselves.
Examples from the 2016-2017 season include:
- Actor and playwright Roger Guenveur Smith lead a theatre class for Prof. Alex Draper’s “Voice of the Actor” course, attended the weekly theatre dept. lunch, and hosted a brunch discussion following his two performances of “Rodney King”
- The Belcea Quartet leads a lecture/demonstration of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” quartet for Prof. Peter Hamlin’s Diatonic theory class.
- Pianist Gloria Chien—of Sophie Shao and Friends—gave a master class to pianists Gloria Breck ’17 and Gareth Corgery ’20.
- Persian music ensemble Constantinpole lead a public pre-concert lecture/demonstration about their unique collaboration with special guest kanun player Didem Başar.
- Jazz pianist Jean-Michel Pilc gave a public lecture/demonstration entitled “The Art and Heart of Improvisation” and lead a master class for jazz combos
Composer Pierre Jalbert accompanied the Morgenstern Piano Trio to Middlebury to offer a pre-concert lecture on his work the trio performed and stayed to work with Prof. Su Lian Tan’s Music 2 class on serial compositions. The Morgenstern Trio itself visited Professor Hamberlin’s Intro to Western Music on Robison Hall stage.- American roots composer and violinist Jenny Scheinman visited Film & Media Culture class Sight & Sound I, taught by Natasha Ngaiza, before later coaching student folk duo Milo Stanley ‘17.5 and Aidan O’Brien ’20.
- The Doric String Quartet (our free Sunderman concert ensemble) provided one-on-one coaching for student composer Kean Haunt ’17, offering him insight into quartet techniques and offering feedback on his work-in-progress.
- Maree ReMalia (our Mellon choreographer-in-residence) and her company merrygogo lead our most robust residency of the year including movement workshops and masterclasses; Gaga classes; visits to Costume Design, Creative Process, Environmental Studies, Electronic Music, and Sociology courses; a “Healing from Trauma” workshop for MiddSafe; plus, a meet-up with the Chicago Posse.
The Brentano String Quartet spent an early Saturday morning reading through and recording serial compositions written by Professor Tan’s Music 2 class, as well as Kean Haunt’s final work, in conjunction with their Bach Festival performance.- Soprano Dawn Upshaw lead a vocal master class with four Middlebury College students, which the public was invited to observe.
Our sincerest thanks to the Rothrock Family for making these activities possible.
To learn more, contact Allison at carroll@middlebury.edu