Nancy Chumachenco

Name:	Nancy Chumachenco
Location:	Salmsach Switzerland 8599
Contact:	Please visit the Astona website: www.astona-international.ch Send Nancy Chumachenco a message

Additional Info:

A native-born American (1943), I am a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where I was a student of Orlando Cole and Leonard Rose. I attended Tanglewood and Meadowmount as well. I have nevertheless lived in Switzerland most of my adult life. I played in the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and taught cello in the Zurich Music School for many, many years.

I am the director of Astona International, an intensive, highly-selective 3-week summer course for strings and piano in beautiful Switzerland, which I founded in 1988: www.astona-international.ch. I would like to make Astona known to young players, and that is why I have joined CelloProfiles.com. I am also a member of violinist.com.

Astona International is for top-level students who aim to become professional musicians: violinists, violists, cellists and pianists. Loosely based on Meadowmount, „Astona International“ is unique in Switzerland and enjoys a standard of student achievement and teaching which compares with the highest in the world. We accept around 60 participants between the ages of 12 and 24. Astona is beautiful, it is exciting, intensive and demanding, and it is caring, generous and fun. Private lessons (minimum 2 hours per week), daily-coached chamber music, string orchestra and public performance (with professional concert partners at the piano) make up the 4-part curriculum. Students and teachers live and function together in a marvelous institute and spectacular setting overlooking the Lake of Zug. Great accommodations, great food.

Our students come first. Astona is neither a showcase for our teachers nor is it a lucrative concert venue for famous names. Our acclaimed concerts are performed entirely by our students: solo, chamber music and orchestra. Our lessons take place behind closed doors. Scholarships and travel assistance are available. It goes without saying that Astona is a non-profit organisation and that we depend upon sponsorship to make Astona possible.

Affiliated with Astona (former or current members of the faculty) are violin pedagogues such as Pauline Scott, Roland and Almita Vamos, Alf Richard Kraggerud, Detlef Hahn, Vartan Manoogian, Coosje Wijzenbeek, Andrew Dawes and Robert Rozek and cello pedagogues Patrick and Thomas Demenga, Claus Kanngiesser, Troels Svane, Irene Sharp, Oleg Kogan, Ulrich Voss, Claude Starck, Hannah Roberts, Francis Gouton. Our alumni include violinists such as Janine Jansen, Carla Leurs, Esther Hoppe, Veronika Eberle, Eldbjorg Hemsing, Linus Roth, Amy Schwartz, Catharina Chen, Jeroen van der Wel, Miriam Aalien, Corina Belcea, Sean Riley, Alexander Khatiskatsi and cellists Christian Poltera, Sebastian Klinger, David Cohen, Silver Ainomae, Sandra Lied Haga, Frida Fredderike Waaler, Kina Kantor, Marius Urba, Liubov Ulybysheva. In total 40 countries have been represented over the past 23 years. Many of our students have gone on to further their studies with our teachers at their respective institutions (Guildhall in London, Hochschule Detmold, Oslo Conservatory, Conservatory in Bern, etc.)

Astona International will take place in 2011 from July 24 to August 13. All information is to be found on the website: www.astona-international.ch. We are about to launch a brand new website.
To register, or for more information:
Call +41714611313
http://www.astona-international.ch
director@astona-international.ch