DEDICATED INSTRUCTOR, Peter Hughes, can provide violin or viola lessons at his home studio or at one of several well-known music programs in Central Mass. Please visit www.pakmusic.org, www.jomp.org, www.robinsonmusicinc.com, as well as www.annamaria.edu or please contact me directly and I will assist you in coordinating the lessons you are seeking!

VIVA PABLO CASALS, RUDOLPH SERKIN--MUSIC AT MARLBORO, 1970!!

"In 1970, when I was thirteen, my teacher Sarah Scriven helped me obtain a full scholarship to attend a summer program connected with the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. I had no idea what to expect. Only about ten youth appeared at the program, hailing from inner cities along the East Coast, but we had the chance of a lifetime to meet world famous classical musicians, to attend their rehearsals, to swim in the same swimming pool with them, eat lunch with them, to even perform for them. I remember practicing violin for hours, or at least I thought I would practice for hours, but I probably spent more time playing one-on-one basketball with a fellow camper in the summer heat one afternoon than I practiced violin all week, and we drank about thirty cans of free soda between the two of us. I lost track of time; the camp was relatively unstructured. I remember the day before I was to play violin for Pablo Casals, the great cellist of the 20th century, I contracted food poisoning and lay writhing on the floor for the better part of an afternoon. My mother came to pick me up, to take me home before the camp ended-- the drama of the sickness gave me a convenient out--I don't recall whether my parents gave me the option to stay, but the prospect of performing my Schubert Sonatina for Casals had been looming ominously in my mind for several days. I got to shake hands with Mr. Casals before I went home--a lot easier than performing for him, and some consolation for a bronze memory. What a story I'd be telling now if I'd had the courage to perform for him! I also remember getting word from one of the counselors that Casals had enjoyed reading some notes I wrote about a rehearsal he was conducting with the Marlboro Festival Orchestra.  Rudolph Serkin sent me an autographed picture of himself on which he wrote, "To Peter with kindest regards, Rudolph Serkin, August, 1970, Marlboro."

What super-heroes, mythical "boys of summer" who emerged from a golden dream to greet a youth such as me! Thereafter, throughout my teenage years I immersed myself in listening to great recordings, trying to internalize so much elusive beauty from an alternate, artistic universe. Two years later Sarah Scriven dug up yet another scholarship, this time for the Apple Hill Chamber Players summer camp--another life-changer, a story for another day...

 ...For the better part of eight years, Mrs. Scriven charged only eight dollars for my hour lesson every week -- I guess she could see we were poor. Yet it was Mr. Grant Rudnicki who sent me to her, and he had once been her student as well--and she welcomed me instinctively, with great sentiment. Years later she raised the fee to ten dollars or twelve dollars. Her usual rate was twenty dollars per hour-- that was nearly forty years ago. My mother drove me all the way from Worcester to Boston and back again once a week until I was old enough to drive at age sixteen, and then I drove the seventy miles round-trip myself every week for two years until I was eighteen.    When I entered NEC in 1975, the endless summer came to an end..."

--Peter Hughes   6/27/08          

Below:   From the Marlboro Music Camp after my return home, Summer, 1970....