Galamian Institute of Music, Skye Carman

Ms. Carman made her concert debut at age 11 as soloist with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, already having won the Concerto Competition at the National Music Camp at Interlochen for the first time at age nine. She went on to win that competition each year for seven years. During high school she won the Michigan Federation of Music Clubs scholarship twice, and was soloist with the Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and Lansing Symphony orchestras. She was concertmaster of the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony, and the National Music Camp (as the Interlochen Arts Camp was then called) orchestras – both Intermediate and High School divisions

Skye Carman, lessons for string instruments

Professor Knitzer with Skye Carman (far right) and fellow students

Henryk Szeryng’s masterclass

(clockwise from top: Richard Luby, Skye Carman, Lynn Richmond, John Harding)

In 1994 Ms. Carman founded the Orchestral Auditions Workshops, or Audition Training, as it is now called. She combined her experience in both taking and judging aorchestra auditions with her management training to develop a unique workshop to help musicians prepare for and play successful auditions. She has since has given this training in Holland, Denmark, Spain and the U.S.

	SKYE CARMAN Biography
Skye Carman, violinist, was born into a musical family. Her mother was the local violin teacher and her father was a cellist. Ms. Carman began violin and piano lessons when she was three years old. At age five she was accepted by Julius Stulberg, professor of violin at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, her hometown. Professor Stulberg had been a student of Louis Persinger and Bronislav Huberman.

Ms. Carman made her concert debut at age 11 as soloist with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, already having won the Concerto Competition at the National Music Camp at Interlochen for the first time at age nine. She went on to win that competition each year for seven years. During high school she won the Michigan Federation of Music Clubs scholarship twice, and was soloist with the Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and Lansing Symphony orchestras. She was concertmaster of the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony, and the National Music Camp (as the Interlochen Arts Camp was then called) orchestras – both Intermediate and High School divisions

She graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy, where she studied with Joseph Knitzer, winning the Concerto Competition both years of her attendance and serving as concertmaster of the orchestra. During her senior year she was invited to play for Henryk Szeryng’s masterclass.
Professor Knitzer with Skye Carman (far right) and fellow students	Henryk Szeryng’s masterclass
Ms. Carman continued her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Jascha Brodsky, and at the Juilliard School of Music and the Meadowmount School, where she was a student of Ivan Galamian and Paul Makanowitsky. She studied chamber music with Josef Gingold and the Juilliard Quartet. After her first year of conservatory she was soloist with the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony on their ten-country European tour, under the direction of Julius Stulberg.
Meadowmount 1967
During her Curtis years she gained valuable orchestra experience by free-lancing with the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Opera orchestras, the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra, the Trenton (NJ) Symphony under William Smith (assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra), and many other orchestras in the Philadelphia area, frequently as concertmaster. Although Ms. Carman would later establish her career as a concertmaster, she was initially active as a chamber musician, playing with Heidi Castleman, viola, and Craig Weaver, cello, in a trio based in Philadelphia. After leaving Juillliard she spent a year in graduate study at the University of New York at Binghamton as first violinist of the Hannover Quartet. Following that, she accepted the position of assistant professor and member of the quartet-in-residence at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
After this quartet disbanded, Ms. Carman embarked on her orchestra career, auditioning for the Baltimore Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic in one week. After being offered both jobs, she decided on the Rochestra orchestra, under the direction of David Zinman, where she could combine orchestra work with chamber music performances. She was a charter member of the Eastman Chamber Music Series at the George Eastman house. This was especially gratifying to her because her father, a cellist, had been a charter member of the Rochester Philharmonic and had played chamber music with George Eastman himself in his stately home. During the summers of the Rochester Philharmonic years Ms. Carman played in the Filarmonica de las Americas in Mexico City.	(clockwise from top: Richard Luby, Skye Carman, Lynn Richmond, John Harding)
	Since her first acquaintance with Europe during the KJS tour, Ms. Carman had dreamed of living in Europe. In 1978 she auditioned for the Amsterdam Philharmonic and the National Ballet Orchestra in the Netherlands (this time in one day!). After being offered a position in both orchestras, as well as having won an audition in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under André Previn that same year, she chose to move to Amsterdam. She played one year in the Ballet Orchestra before being appointed concertmaster of the North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra. (foto NPO.jpg)
	That same year she attended a Master Class with Nathan Milstein in Zürich and coached with Herman Krebbers who was at that time concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orkestra.
In 1983 Ms. Carman founded the Chamber Soloists Haarlem (Kamersolisten Haarlem, affectionately known as the SkyeScrapers!) which was a chamber orchestra of 13 members of which she was concertmaster/conductor. For several years this group played extensively throughout Holland.

In l985 she had the honor of playing as assistant concertmaster of the World Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm under Carlo Maria Guilini. As concertmaster of the North Holland Philharmonic, Skye Carman had the opportunity to perform as soloist with the orchestra and give recitals in Europe and the U.S. Her orchestra (NPO) was, however, undergoing a change of direction from classical symphony orchestra to an ensemble with the emphasis on contemporary music. The year 1988 was indicative of this metamorphosis. Ms. Carman performed both the Sibelius Violin Concerto and a contemporary chamber music program featuring the Roussel 2nd Violin and Piano Sonata and the Bartok Contrasts.


During the years l988 to 1994 Ms. Carman, although continuing her work with the NPO, took time for other things. She purchased a house which is on the National Monument list, but which was literally falling down. The restoration took more than three years. The gas and electricity was turned on the day before her son Craig was born! In 1992 and ’93 she attended the School for Social Sciences in Amsterdam earning two diplomas in Business Management. She was immediately able to combine these new skills with her musical experience in her position as dean of the Quartet Program under director Charles Castleman. She was associated with the QP for 4 summers.
In 1994 Ms. Carman founded the Orchestral Auditions Workshops, or Audition Training, as it is now called. She combined her experience in both taking and judging aorchestra auditions with her management training to develop a unique workshop to help musicians prepare for and play successful auditions. She has since has given this training in Holland, Denmark, Spain and the U.S.

In l997 Ms. Carman resumed her solo performances with the NPO She was joined by Emmy Verhey, the renowned Dutch violinist, in performances of the Concerto Grosso No. 1 van Alfred Schnittke. Her solo contribution to the 1998 NPO concert season was the montrously challenging work for electric violin and ensemble by Calliope Tsoupake, “Echoing Purple” (1992). Juggling the responsibilities of being a single parent and a concertmaster proved to be both rewarding and stressful. In 1997 she decided to speak out in support of women musicians. She presented a paper in York, England at the International Congress “Health and the Musician” in l997. Like so many other orchestra musicians, Ms. Carman suffered from playing-related injuries from time to time. She did much crusading (national television, press, etc.) to help focus attention on the health problems suffered by inadequate working conditions and lack of education about how to prevent injuries. In l998 she instigated the workshops “Playing without Pain” which were held nationally in l998 under the auspices of the Dutch Musicians Union.
During her orchestra career Ms. Carman has performed under many renowned conductors. In addition to Zinman and Giulini the list includes Rattle, Tennstedt, Conlon, Frübeck de Burgos, de Waart, Previn, and Ormandy. A highlight was in l999 when she spent the summer playing in the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood under Ozawa. She has been guest concertmaster in the U.S., Spain, and Belgium. 2002 was a very eventful year. Skye Carman became concertmaster of the Holland Symfonia in Amsterdam and a long-cherished dream of founding an institute to honor her teacher, Ivan Galamian, was realized. The Galamian Institute of Music became a reality and “home” to her large class of violin students. In 2003 the first Galamian Summer Music Festival was held in Aubeterre, France. link naar ZMF web-page of misschien een foto?In 2004 Skye Carman left her orchestra position to work full-time for the GIM.
	In addition to her many years of serving on orchestra audition juries she has been invited to serve on juries for young musicians in competitions and auditions including the Princess Christina Competition and the Schumann Academy in the Netherlands. Ms. Carman has served the Meadowmount School in various capacities for many years. She has been on the teaching faculty, has coached chamber music, and has given audition training courses including “Introduction to Auditioning”, a course especially designed for high school students. Her most recent concert (August 2004) was given at Meadowmount where she performed the Mozart Divertimento for String Trio with Patricia McCarty, viola, and Owen Carman, cello, and the Mendelssohn Piano Trio no. 1 with Eric Larsen piano, and Owen Carman. Ms. Carman is on the faculty of the Saxion Conservatory in the Netherlands. (The music heard at the beginning of this link was a fragment from that concert.)