About Us

Our Mission

Board of Directors

Sponsorship

Scholarships

History

Our Mission

Our mission is providing workshops that inspire artistic and personal growth to adult amateur chamber musicians, supported by the highest quality professional coaches.  Our instrumentation includes woodwinds, strings and keyboards.  We aim to provide workshops that are friendly, supportive and non-competitive—no stress, no auditions—in which all participants can improve their musical skills and ensemble playing.

It is also our mission to ensure qualified participants are not turned away for lack of financial means to attend. To this end, our organization is structured and managed to support an extensive scholarship program, to enable those with a love of music but limited means the opportunity to participate and learn, bringing their chamber music love and skills back to their own communities.

Board of Directors

The current directors are:

Officers and Executive Committee:

Will Buss (President, Oboe), Keith Bowen (Vice President, Clarinet), Debra Poulin (Vice President, Bassoon), David Craig (Treasurer, Clarinet), Janet Yaker Murray (Secretary, Flute)

Members-at-large:

Joe Fasel (Concert Manager, Clarinet/Oboe), Sue Peeples (Social Secretary, Horn), Leslie Torchio (Bassoon), Saskia Dyer (Viola).

Honorary Members:

Patrick Berry (Founder of Kammermusik, Bassoon)

You can reach the Board of Directors via email here. We welcome your questions and feedback!

Sponsorship

In the face of many years of declining interest and funding in the arts, and in music programs in schools in particular, our overriding goal is to create an excellent playing and learning experience for the adult amateur player, which we achieve by procuring the best available coaching talent. We now not only look locally, but have engaged world-class coaches from across the USA and abroad. We conduct our workshops in Santa Fe, known for its peaceful environs and mild weather, and have started a biennial workshop in the historic Oxford University, England. As with everything else, as costs rise, they are reflected in our workshop costs. We want to provide as much opportunity as possible to amateur musicians, including those who lack the means to afford the Kammermusik experience.

Our registration fees cover the costs of the workshops themselves for the attendees. We need additional income to grow the workshops and to enable less well-off participants to attend. In 2018, for example, the organization has provided nearly $7,000 in scholarships, enabling more than 20 people to attend who otherwise could not, and bring a love and appreciation of chamber music back to their communities, none of which would have been possible without generous donations received in 2017.

We do our best to help ourselves but have received very helpful ACMP grants that have mitigated financial risk as we’ve experimented with new formats and designs to enhance our programs and keep them fresh. Many Board members (who are all volunteers) and others who have participated in the past have given generous donations to the Workshop.

And we ask you to consider making a donation.

We are approved by the IRS as a 501(c)3 public charity and your contributions are fully deductible for Federal income tax purposes. Our EIN is 86-1092365. Please contact us here for assistance making a donation by check. Or, we will also gladly accept PayPal. Simply click the PayPal donation button below:



Scholarships
Kammermusik Workshops, Inc, has imited funds available to provide scholarships for participants in Kammermusik Workshops. If a scholarship would enable you to attend a workshop, Kammermusik Workshops encourages you to apply for a scholarship. Please do not apply for a scholarship if you can afford to attend a workshop without one, since this may deprive another person of the opportunity to attend a workshop.

Scholarship Selection Criteria

The purpose of the scholarships is to provide financial assistance to those individuals who would not otherwise be able to attend a workshop without financial assistance. The primary focus is to ensure an appropriate instrumental balance at each Kammermusik Workshop, which improves the experience of all workshop participants. A secondary focus is to provide support to individuals who could not otherwise attend and whose attendance, in turn, will benefit their home community musical groups.

The criteria for scholarship awards include:

  1. Financial need
  2. Contribution to the workshop in terms of the balance of the instruments needed at the particular workshop for which the participant has applied
  3. Benefit of the applicant’s participation to his/her home community musical groups

Scholarship Application

Register for the Workshop that you wish to attend in the usual way. The registration form will include an option to request a scholarship and request a general statement of your reason for needing the financial assistance, a brief description of your musical education and experience on your instrument and in playing chamber music, and a brief statement about your participation in music groups in your home community.

Scholarship Awards and Confidentiality

The award of a scholarship will be determined by a committee of the Kammermusik Workshops Board of Directors, including the President, Treasurer and another Director.

All applications for and award of scholarships will be confidential and shall not be disclosed to any person who is not a member of the Kammermusik Workshops Board of Directors.

History

Back in 1996 a group of friends in Kansas City got together, as friends do, to play chamber music. Patrick, David, and Jamie were all nurses; Mary was a doctor; Jeff, a math teacher; and Andrea, an accountant and music teacher. Thus, Kammermusik was born. They played for some years in weddings and receptions and gave an annual concert at the Lake of the Ozarks, in Sunrise Beach, Missouri. In 1996 they decided to make a whole week of it. They invited some other friends who played music for fun, and headed for the Ozarks … and this became the first of the annual Woodwind Workshops.

In 1998, Patrick and David moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the workshop moved to the delightful Sunrise Springs Inn and Retreat, which remained its home for many years. The annual concert performances are held in one of excellent downtown locations in Santa Fe. A new Winter Weekend Workshop has been added, offering at least 5 workshop choices, along with a workshop in St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, UK. We have grown from six to about 62 at a recent workshop. Kammermusik is unusual. There are plenty of camps and workshops for young players, but few for adults. Our adults range from 18 to 95+!

As the workshop grew, so did the organization. Patrick Berry ran the workshop single-handedly for many years. Volunteers from the membership started to help him, then finally in 2004 we set up a new non-profit corporation in New Mexico to ensure that it would be self-perpetuating. Keith Bowen was President and the chief executive from 2004 to 2015, while Patrick is an Honorary Board Member. We had great celebrations in 2005 for the tenth Workshop. An active Board guides the officers and ensures that the interests of both local and far distant musicians are catered for. Will Buss became the President in 2015 and the Board expressed its great thanks for Keith’s many years of fine service in leading the organization.

In 2003 we began a new venture, the winter masterclass weekend, in which we engaged a distinguished musician to coach us through a major work or works and come to a deeper understanding of the genre. These weekends included such works and esteemed coaches as:

  • the Mozart musicologist Dan Leeson on the Mozart Serenade in Bb, “Gran Partitta”
  • the Emmy winning composer Gerald Fried on Richard Strauss’ Happy Workshop
  • our flute coach, Laura Dwyer on the Bernard decet, Gounod Petite Symphonie and Caplet decet
  • Forest Aten of the Dallas Opera Orchestra on HarmonieMusik
  • Kathleen Mackintosh, baroque harpsichordist on the Trio Sonata
  • Professor Michael Lynn of Oberlin on the Trio Sonata
  • Professor David Whitwell on Mozart Serenades
  • Professor Chris Weait on Symphonic Harmoniemusik

This weekend has now become a 4-day multi-track Winter Workshop, which in 2017 was attended by 62 players, including woodwinds, strings and keyboards.

As Kammermusik Workshops continues to evolve and grow, we hope that you, whether you are an old-timer or a newcomer, can continue to support us with your talents, suggestions, and appreciation. In fact much of our evolution is due to the feedback of our members.  And if you haven’t made it to a Kammermusik Workshop yet … well, what are you waiting for? Come join a great bunch of amateur and professional musicians in wonderful music-making in the high desert of New Mexico or the hallowed halls of Oxford University.

You’ll be very glad you did! Just have a peek at what others have had to say about the experience!

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