Strings
Longy cultivates string players who are collaborative and entrepreneurial.
- Learn from faculty who are active performers and leaders of innovative organizations.
- Perfect your craft with abundant chamber music opportunities.
- Practice side-by-side with faculty in Longy’s full symphony orchestra, Orchestra IS.
- Experience the agency to choose what you play and how to play it.
- Collaborate with Longy composers.
Faculty
Cello
Double Bass
Guitar
Strings Spotlight
KARLA DONEHEW PÉREZ, Strings Faculty
“There is always a way to put your ideas into action, no matter how big or bold they may be—even if the path forward takes you in new and surprising directions.
At Longy, I have witnessed some truly incredible humans transform and stretch to their potential.“
NINA KASPER (MM 2024), Vocal Studies | Minor-Cello
“Longy has been an incredibly nurturing environment for me to develop as a musician and explore new avenues of creativity.“
Course Highlights
Chamber Music with a Point of View
This class will approach musical works using interdisciplinary entry points, such as poetry, improvisation, literature, dance, and visual art. Students will be encouraged to find, within their repertoire, elements that they wish to explore and enhance by incorporating other disciplines or modalities. The course will culminate in a public performance, either online or in person, both marketed and produced by class participants and including works or artistic processes from other disciplines. Open to all students.
Baroque String Playing for Modern Instrumentalists
Imagine yourself in 17th-Century Europe looking forward, rather than looking backwards. Through hands-on interaction with early instruments, study of treatises and source materials, and engagement with a significant selection of repertoire, broaden your knowledge and skillset with early music.
Customize Your Curriculum
Create your own opportunities, find new audiences, and make a living in unexpected ways by customizing your curriculum from a catalog of project-based courses you can’t find anywhere else. Our faculty mentors and experienced career coaches will be there to guide you.
More Highlights
Studio Lessons:
Collaboration with a faculty mentor is the cornerstone of conservatory education at Longy. Together you will explore your unique artistic and professional goals while expanding technical and musical insight.
Orchestra IS:
Longy’s Orchestra IS brings together our complete student body of winds, strings, and brass players to perform diverse repertoire adapted to the ensemble’s makeup. With Longy faculty sitting side-by-side with the students, and led by guest conductors, the aptly named Orchestra IS is both the name of our symphony orchestra and an invitation to fill in the blank. What IS an orchestra? What CAN an orchestra be?
Ensemble Uncaged:
Ensemble Uncaged is Longy’s premier contemporary music ensemble dedicated to the performance of works by living and recently deceased composers. We honor the familiar, invite the unknown, and challenge the conceptual limits of concert music in the 21st century.
Chamber Music:
Georges Longy’s belief in the power of collaboration inspires the central role of chamber music in our conservatory. Students will work closely with faculty coaches every semester and explore ensemble playing through coursework, informal readings, and community collaborations.
Masterclasses and Seminars:
Through workshops, masterclasses, discussions, and presentations, frequent opportunities with faculty and guest artists offer insight regarding interpretation, repertoire, analysis, and performance practice. Through a special partnership with Celebrity Series of Boston, emerging artists in its Debut Series present exclusive workshops and master classes with Longy students throughout the year.
Pedagogy:
We believe that teaching should be a form of heightened, enlivened communication. Rather than focusing solely on acquiring technical skills, we seek to draw out your latent expertise and help you communicate authentically.