Founded in 2006, the Academy program at the Music Institute of Chicago provides comprehensive pre-college music education for students with the desire and potential to be professional musicians. Every Saturday through the school year over 60 students spend an entire day taking private lessons, chamber music, orchestra, and music theory classes with the Music Institute of Chicago’s distinguished artist faculty. Weekly master classes by visiting artists give students the opportunity to work with performers such as violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and pianist Stephen Hough.
Academy members are selected by competitive audition and comprise students from Chicagoland, the mid-west and beyond. Each year, students from the Academy distinguish themselves in local, regional, national, and international competitions. In the last two seasons, Academy chamber ensembles have swept top honors at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, all prizes at the Chicago Symphony Youth Auditions, and first prizes including Steinway Competition, Skokie Valley Symphony Competition, St. Paul String Quartet Competition, and the Aspen Festival Concerto Competition.
Academy students are regularly featured on WFMT’s Introductions, the nationally syndicated program From the Top, and at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Music in the Loft, the Steinway Series, and Nichols Concert Hall. In the spring of 2009, Academy chamber ensembles and soloists tour the East Coast including appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Curriculum Policy
The Academy program meets on Saturdays for thirty weeks from September to May. All students must be enrolled for private instruction at the Music Institute of Chicago. Students living within a 60-mile radius of the Music Institute of Chicago should expect to take their private lessons on a day other that Saturday. All students in the program must participate fully in all program components and participation in Academy performances and attendance at selected concerts is required. Attendance policies are detailed in the Academy Handbook.
Entrance is by selective audition.