IMF Music Festival - Cleveland
August 4, 2008
All over the world, there are in depth music institutes where kids can get advanced music opportunities, new experiences and interact with kids that are also serious about music. The kids also get to meet adults that have chosen careers in music.
This year we decided to see what these music institutes are all about. We attended the IMF Music Festival - http://www.intmusfest.org.
It is important to remember that we are a dedicated Suzuki family, which means we take music seriously and our older daughter has been performing since she was 4 years old. Suzuki is expensive though. We pay for individual piano lessons and group music lessons. We also pay for separate guitar and voice lessons. So we kept putting off participating in the music festival as well because of the additional cost.
We will be listing the good and bad things we found with the music festival. But the first question I want to answer is, will we do it again? Yes.
Ultimately, there were the benefits that made it well worth the $400+ cost.
- Our daughter got several chances to perform, including an honors program and playing with an orchestra. These were priceless opportunities that gave her confidence and experience.
- The talent show was anything goes, and our daughter played the guitar while our three year old danced. It got a roar of applause and was a good experience for both.
- Fencing – Yes, they had classes in other areas as well, and our daughter really enjoyed fencing.
- Great support – Some of the faculty and teachers spoke very highly of Alexandra and gave her a lot of pointers and praise. Some even said they would love to be her teacher if she ever moved to their area.
- Variety – We saw flute, harp, Indian and Persian instruments and singing as well as the expected violin, viola, cello and piano.
Finally, it was the attitude shift. After Alexandra saw other kids that were very talented as well, it motivated her to do more work and practice, because she wants to go back next year and be even better.
Was the International Music Festival good? Yes. Could it be better? Yes.
Here are the things we were not crazy about.
- Lots of things required additional expenses – We did not participate in anything that cost extra, and there were a lot of them. This left us with long dead times where people were out doing things. We ended up leaving early on the last day because we did not want to pay for 4 people to go on the Good Time Cruise or pay extra for the picnic.
- Too much information – It was hard to figure out exactly what to do at times. While there was a lot of published information, it was confusing at times and there was too much of it. People that had come in years past clearly had a better idea of what was going on.
- Cancellation of classes – because attendance was down, they canceled some of the classes, including the advanced piano class we signed up for. We would have liked to substitute guitar, but that was canceled too. The end result was less music instruction than we’d hoped for.
- Long breaks for commuters – We live about 1 hour from the institute, so we drove every day. However, we had a long break usually from 3:00 to 7:00 at night. Not fun for us to waste so much time, especially with a three year old. It seems better designed for those people staying close by in the hotel.
There were some other things from a marketing prospective I would change. They seemed to ask for donations a lot, but did not give an envelope where people could donate later and drop it someplace. I did not have cash or check with me, so I could not donate anything. Also, they made it hard to pay for things with a credit card. Supposedly, you could give Dr. Landers the credit card and he could process it, but no one seemed excited about that and I did not want to bother him, so we just did not pay for the extra trip we were considering going on.
Also, first time attendees did not seem to feel like they meshed well with the community. I would have had people working specifically with the first year people to make sure they met more people and understood everything. (They did a good job of answering questions, but more integration with the group would ensure more would return next year)
Lastly, I think there was a very noticeable amount of frustration on the part of the people running the event. Attendance was down and the way it was mentioned several times along with the complaining we overheard several times made me concerned that they may not even survive next year. I hope they do. I also home they hire a business/event manager to help market and run the event. The people that were there were great, but they are not event professionals and they did not seem to realize that they were performing even when standing in the hall and chatting.
So to summarize, I would recommend these kinds of festivals if you are serious about music and want your kids to be inspired. If you are running these kinds of events, make things easier, make sure people connect more and remind every instructor and volunteer that it is a five day performance.
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