UVic Summer Piano Camp

by Claude Veilleux

The 9-days Summer Piano Intensive was offered by the University of Victoria in July 2025. It included masterclasses, daily noon recitals, private lessons, faculty talks and duo day, as well as an optional 7-days 2-hours talk on the subject of the composer Franz Schubert. You could choose your own pace for the piano intensive, from going slow by going to the masterclasses as a minimum and enjoying listening to performances and lectures, to taking part in as many

masterclasses and daily noon-recitals performances as possible. 

I decided to go all the way to play as much as possible during the 9 days, and it ended up being a fast-paced session, with masterclasses given by world-class professional instructors, then practice fixing music as much as possible, then performing with the suggested changes, then more practice and masterclasses, then going to talks about Schubert given by university lecturer Dr. Michelle Fillion, who gave me a new appreciation of Franz Schubert through demonstrations, stories and Performances.

The fees for the course were quite reasonable: $680 for the 9-days piano session (mostly 9 to 4), and $220 for the 7-days Schubert class (4 to 6). With flights from and back to Calgary, campus accommodation (I had a single room with private bathroom) and food, the total expense was just over $4000. There are many other accommodation selections on site, for all kinds of budgets. 

Instructors are mostly at retirement age, but this doesn’t prevent them from using current technology like iPad for music scores, electronic pedals for controlling page turns, and hydraulic benches. Instructors' piano playing was fabulous. On the downside, I found that the faculty was not so strong in Early Music outside of the classics like Bach.

The Music faculty has many practice rooms (cubicles) with upright pianos. To really make the most of the Piano Intensive as possible, it’s better to have a good number of pieces that are known; reading or winging it, is just not a good option. No need to know the music by heart, but it helps. Internet is used extensively for getting scores and accessing various articles, but in the faculty’s basement, the connection is not always reliable, unfortunately.

The UVic Summer Piano included many opportunities to play the piano, read music, discover new repertoire, and make a lot of new really talented friends of all ages and piano levels (even at least 6 people who came from the US!) who shared many stories of struggles, failures and successes in the music-making world. The session put a lot of pressure on many participants who showed flexibility, talent and humility in face of harsh and nerve-racking conditions at times. I’m glad I did it, and look forward to next year’s session, which will include Debussy and some Ravel.