The Quartz Mountain Music Festival will utilize the Western Oklahoma State College facilities in Altus for the 1st Annual Orchestral and Chamber Music Academies for college students during the festival week in July; the town of Granite will host the 2nd Annual Celedonio Romero Guitar Institute, along with the 2nd Annual Oklahoma Outback Art Festival. Michael Palmer, conductor of the QMMF orchestra, will lead the Orchestral Music Academy. In the Chamber Music Academy, Violinist Annie Chalex Boyle of Traverse City, Mich., will direct the string students; and Chad Burrow, woodwind instructor at the University of Michigan, will teach the woodwind and brass fellows.

From throughout the United States, world-class professional musicians in the QMMF orchestra will serve as faculty for the Orchestral Music Academy and Chamber Music Academy. The approximately 35 fellows (20 string players and 15 woodwind and percussion) will engage in intensive study during morning rehearsals at WOSC and will perform with the professional musicians at the Saturday night QMMF orchestral concert. They will participate in master classes and receive more than 30 contact hours with faculty. The number of professionals teaching at the academy will equal the number of fellows.

“It is a side-by-side experience; for instance, on each of the string stands, the outside player will be a professional and the inside player will be an academy fellow,” said Palmer, director of orchestras at Georgia State University School of Music. “In the closest way, the orchestral academy fellow will be studying with the professional who is sitting next to him and going through the experience with him.”