Several years ago, Juilliard was invited to collaborate with the Hochschule "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" in Leipzig, Germany, to present an annual three-week summer academy whose faculty would be drawn from Juilliard, a different rotating European conservatory each year, and the Leipzig Hochschule. All classes and lessons would be in English, an aspect that appealed to both Europeans and Americans. After much planning, the first International Summer Academy at the Leipzig Hochschule took place in July 2001.

An outdoor concert in front of the reconstructed Bach Denkmal, a monument erected in the early 19th century. Photo by Wolfgang Zeyen

Last summer—the academy's second year—Juilliard faculty members Jacob Lateiner, Bruce Brubaker, and Stephen Clapp taught at the Hochschule. They also performed (along with Juilliard students Elise Goodman and Michele Satris) in such historic venues as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Thomaskirche, Nicholaikirche, Groelischer Schloesschen, and the Mendelssohn Haus.

As they strolled streets that Bach and Mendelssohn had walked and played music in the very spaces where these composers had once performed, the participants were especially excited by the experience of finding themselves in a city where musical tradition resonates with such immediacy. "One of the most interesting things about my stay in Leipzig was visiting the Thomaskirche, where Bach was cantor and 'Director Musicus' from 1723-50," notes fourth-year violinist Elise Goodman. "I got a chance to walk inside on one of my first days in the city. While I wandered around, someone was practicing on the organ—Bach, of course! We always walked into the main part of town on the street where the Thomaskirche is located, along with a Bach museum, two Bach statues, a couple of souvenir shops and even a Bach tea café! Coming from Los Angeles, I found it refreshingly foreign that a city's thriving tourist traps could be based on a history of composers and literary figures who had lived there hundreds of years ago. To be welcomed as a musician in a city like Leipzig, which takes such pride in its composers and musicians, was a great experience," she says.

Piano faculty member Jacob Lateiner first went to Leipzig in 1976 and returned frequently during the time of the German Democratic Republic, teaching and judging international competitions. "It was most exciting to come back last summer after an absence of several years and find it a seemingly new city full of energy, revitalized and booming since the reunification of Germany," he says. "I could even purchase most of my favorite single-malt scotch whiskies! The musical heritage is more palpable than ever. Bach lived there the last 27 years of his life; Mendelssohn and Schumann each spent about 12 active years of their short lives in Leipzig. Their spirit is immanent—one could feel their presence in the very air one breathed."

The concert was performed by (left to right) violinist Emanuela Nikiforova (from Bulgaria), violinist Stephen Clapp, violist Jeong-In Byun (from Korea), and cellist Hyun-Min Lee (from Korea). Photo by Wolfgang Zeyen

The academy itself was, in Lateiner's words, "a beehive of activity—I should say, hyperactivity," as studio lessons, master classes, chamber music rehearsals, and dozens of public concerts in various venues more than filled each day. Piano literature faculty member Bruce Brubaker heard and coached "a great deal of chamber music: Janacek's First String Quartet, a string quartet by Philip Glass, music by Roussel, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Brahms. And did I say Mendelssohn? There were performances of many wonderful pieces by the founder of the Leipzig Hochschule," he notes. Brubaker performed Brahms's C-Major Piano Trio with students in the small hall of the Gewandhaus (the Mendelssohn Saal), on one of the many concerts given by participants in the academy—often to large crowds.

Leipzig, as Brubaker notes, "was Mendelssohn's town from 1835 until his death in 1847, and it's a place where 'classical music' got started. The idea of a continuing tradition of old music that could actually be played, the idea of a repertoire canon—these ideas of 'classical' music can be traced to Mendelssohn and other Germanic musicians of the early 19th century. Nearly every day in Leipzig, I passed by the reconstructed Bach Denkmal, the monument erected in the early 19th century to honor the cantor of Leipzig, and to honor the concept of music that could live on after a composer's death—after all, a rather modern and unusual notion!"

Brubaker also visited Mendelssohn's house and the rooms Clara and Robert Schumann occupied when they lived in Leipzig. "Every day, I walked the 15 minutes or so from the Nikolaus Church through the old center city to the school. That time provided a lot of opportunity to consider previous strollers in those streets. For me, Leipzig is not only a site of the musical past, but a place where the very international future of music can be made."

This summer, the third International Summer Music Academy will take place July 16-August 5, with Juilliard violist Toby Appel, pianist Bruce Brubaker, and flutist Carole Wincenc as members of the Academy faculty. Financial aid is available for Juilliard students, including two full-tuition scholarships. Brochures are available from these three faculty members and in the Dean's Office; further descriptions are included in the International Summer Academy section of the Juilliard Web site, www.juilliard.edu/summer/international.html. Applications (including a representative recording) are due by March 17.

Stephen Clapp is the dean of Juilliard and has been a member of the violin faculty since 1987.