MEADOWMOUNT SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Arts Entertainment and Leisure > Music Lessons and Teacher

The year was 1937, and a man named Ivan Galamian was stepping off a ship in New York City. Already, his life had encompassed more experiences than people twice his age. He had seen the inside of a jail cell in Russia. He had played on some of the grandest concert stages in Paris. He had taught some of the most celebrated European violin-playing prodigies of his era. He had celebrated public praise of his own playing, reviews that contained seemingly every positive adjective known to humankind.
Still, the best was yet to come. Galamian was in America now. He was still a young man. He had a mission in mind, and a steely determination that would prevent anything from standing in his way.
Today, the greatest testimonial of that mission stands on a plateau amid the Adirondack Mountains. To the outsider, the place seems desolate. Located near the small community of Lewis, N.Y., this collection of wooden buildings is hardly a grandiose monument. Driving along County Route 10, an unapprised bystander could easily sail by without even a passing glance.
Yet inside those buildings, Ivan Galamian fulfilled his self-proclaimed prophecy. He never said so, of course. That would be boasting, and those who studied with him declare that arrogance was not one of the master teacher’s traits. Even in lessons, silence was his specialty.
Instead, the legacy of this remote spot is best told through the words of those people who grew up there. Listen to those individuals who were transformed from players into musicians within this crucible. Men and women whose names fill the encyclopedias — names like Perlman and Zukerman, Laredo and Rabin, Ma and Harrell, Bell and Ehnes and so many more — took their first steps toward brilliance here. Nobody passed through this place unchanged.
This is the story of the Meadowmount School of Music. It is a story that has lasted for 70 years, with new chapters emerging every summer. It is a story of some of the fiercest dedication imaginable, with teachers and students alike focusing their complete energies on a very specific goal. And it is the story of how that man stepping onto American soil in 1937 forged his lofty pronouncement into reality, a realization that returns to life over and over again at this place in the Adirondack wilderness.

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