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Each year, we are fortunate to attract such outstanding faculty to the Solti-Peretti Repetiteur Course. In 2025, we celebrated our ongoing partnership with the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation by inviting my faculty colleagues, Anthony Legge and James Vaughan, to join us for the full duration of the course—rather than just part of it.
As is usually the case, the pianists came from across the globe—China, Korea, Ireland, Israel, Spain, and Italy. Each arrived with a high level of skill, yet it is always fascinating to see which areas they are already proficient in and which are new to them. This year’s cohort particularly distinguished themselves through the progress they made in such a short time.
Over the ten days of the course, we introduced them to a wide range of skills essential to this demanding profession. This included prompting, orchestral sound, vocal coaching, and basic conducting. For some, it was their first real experience with conducting, and a few became so enthusiastic that they intend to pursue it further. In fact, I’ve already received messages from some of them describing how much this training has helped in real-world situations they’ve encountered since. Conducting is a valuable skill for repetiteurs, who may be called upon to lead offstage bands or choruses, run rehearsals with singers, or even take over an orchestral rehearsal when the conductor steps back to listen for balance in the hall.
To complement their teaching sessions, the repetiteur students collaborated with six alumni from the Bel Canto Course, whose talent and enthusiasm greatly enriched the experience and made the course a true pleasure.
A highlight this year was the arrangement of the overture from Verdi’s La forza del destino, led and conducted by Lyra Liu from China—her first time conducting. Together with the five pianists, she invented a huge sound-world for this arrangement. For the final concert, she chose to conduct from memory. The whole performance was a great success, and their journey in ten days was remarkable - they changed as people, too, gaining in confidence as well as ability.