You’re invited to join Oliver Prezant on a journey of musical and artistic exploration and discovery!
Scroll down for more information:
-About Oliver
-Programs for Listeners and Audience Members
-Workshops for Amateur and Professional Musicians
-Professional Development for Teachers and Workshops for K-12 Students
-Programs for Arts Organizations and Museums
About Oliver
Conductor, composer, violist, and arts educator Oliver Prezant has had a wide-ranging career in the arts. As an educator, he has presented interactive lectures and education programs on opera, orchestral, and chamber music for audiences of all ages for organizations including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Opera Southwest, Performance Santa Fe, the Tanglewood Association of Volunteers, Road Scholar, and the Guilds of the Santa Fe and San Francisco Opera companies.
He has written and hosted radio shows, preview CDs, and online Prelude Talks for the Santa Fe Opera, and radio shows for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He has interviewed prominent singers, instrumentalists, composers, and directors, including Patricia Racette, Jaime Laredo, Osvaldo Golijov, Kaija Saariaho, Tan Dun, and Peter Sellars. He was featured as one of Road Scholar’s Favorite Instructors, and was one of three instructors, internationally, chosen to create the first online pilot programs for Road Scholar during the Covid pandemic.
Oliver has presented programs on the relationship of visual art and music for the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, the New Mexico Museum of Art, and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell, New Mexico. He created an interactive education exhibit for the Albuquerque Museum of Art featuring videos and original piano music based on selected paintings. His Discovering the Music of Paintings series at Strata Gallery in Santa Fe features three improvising musicians interpreting the artwork of artists including Mary Vernon, Nishiki Sugawara-Beda, Carlos Canul, and others.
He was an Assistant Professor in the Contemporary Music Program at the College of Santa Fe, and an instructor at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. His workshops for choristers and instrumentalists are based on an approach that features exploration, discovery, and experiential learning in the areas of musical expression, understanding, performance, and creativity.
As the Music Director and Conductor of the Santa Fe Community Orchestra for twenty years, he worked with community musicians and choristers, professional soloists, public school music students, and composers from Santa Fe and northern New Mexico to present a wide variety of innovative performances, youth concerts and audience education programs, community collaborations with museums, arts organizations, and creative artists, and performances of large choral works at venues including the Cathedral Basilica and the main stage of the Santa Fe Opera. His notable compositions include La Mariposa (The Butterfly) for storyteller and orchestra, songs and poems in a variety of genres, and educational pieces for student band and orchestra programs.
He was a founding teaching artist in the ArtWorks Program of the Partners in Education Foundation for the Santa Fe Public Schools, a Lincoln Center Institute-inspired program that provides arts education workshops for students and teachers in the areas of music, poetry, visual art, theater, and dance. He also served as the Artistic Advisor to the ArtWorks program for many years, training teaching artists and classroom teachers and coordinating with area poets, museums, and performing arts organizations.
As a violist, he performed with numerous ensembles in New York, Los Angeles, and the Santa Fe-Albuquerque area, including the California Chamber Virtuosi, the Santa Fe Opera, and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, and he was the principal violist on the National Tour of Sondheim’s Into the Woods.
As a videographer and editor, he has created, produced, and appeared in educational video projects for the Santa Fe Opera, the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, the Santa Fe Community Orchestra, and the ArtWorks program.
His unique presentations, performances, and workshops have helped thousands of music lovers, community musicians, students, teachers and museum patrons deepen their appreciation and enjoyment of music and the arts.
Discovering Programs with Oliver Prezant and Friends
Discovering Programs with Oliver Prezant and Friends provide an opportunity for you to deepen your understanding and enjoyment of the performances and works of art that are featured in each program.
Whether we’re exploring the relationships between artistic mediums with original improvised music or just focusing on a single piece by a great composer, you’ll be guided into the experience in ways that are accessible and easy to grasp.
What makes Discovering Programs different is you. Your participation and involvement, your evolving understanding, the impressions you share, and the connections you develop with the works of art, the creative artists and performers, and the other members of the audience at the programs we present.
Programs for Listeners and Audience Members
Discovering the Music of Paintings, featuring Oliver Prezant and violinist Carla Kountoupes, clarinetist Jerry Weimer, cellist Katie Harlow, and the artwork of Mary Vernon.
“For over an hour the audience seated in the gallery looked at and talked about one large Vernon painting and its elements and the relations between them. Prezant led this discussion, at strategic intervals conducting three classically trained musicians who musically illustrated their [the audience’s] interpretations of those elements and relations. Think of Prezant as a gifted inducer of synesthesia. By the end of this literally dazzling "concert"/discussion, all of us were experiencing that painting very differently.”
—Lin Medlin, artist
Oliver Prezant Conducting Painting, Mary Vernon-Wall With Mirror
Discovering the Music of Bach, featuring Oliver Prezant and guitarist Roberto Capocchi, performing Bach’s Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in in D Minor, BWV 1004.
Oliver Prezant Listening, Roberto Capocchi Playing. | Credit: Cynthia Whitney Ward, Artwork-Paradise Falls by Anna Rotty
Presentations on Opera
Explore the music, the libretto, the source material, the historical context, and the operatic tradition, the important elements of plot and character, and the way in which the director’s concept shapes the overall design of the production. Oliver has been a lecturer and educator for the Santa Fe Opera for 25 years and has presented talks for companies and organizations including Opera Southwest, the Guilds of the San Francisco Opera, and Road Scholar. His unique presentations have helped thousands of audience members deepen their appreciation and enjoyment of opera.
“The lecture alone was worth the price of admission!”
—Santa Fe Opera audience members
Santa Fe Opera Guild, Opera 101 (Opera Volunteers International Special Program Award, 2012)
“Through your skill and experience with audiences, we ended up with the right amount of time, the right balance of music and material, and the right mix of presentation and activity. It ended up being informative and fun and accessible for everyone and it would not have been possible without you.”
—Cynthia Turner, President, Santa Fe Opera Guild
“This is why we volunteer for the Guild.”
—Pat M., Vice President of Education, Santa Fe Opera Guild
Oliver Prezant pointing, Italian Girl Poster at SFO. | Credit: Ruthanne Greeley
Oliver Prezant hands raised, Stieren Hall, SFO. | Credit: Ruthanne Greeley
Oliver Prezant with SFO Season Poster, 2021
Orchestral and Chamber Music
Every composer breathes life into a piece of music in their own way, and every piece has its own logic, expression, patterning, structure, and design. Pre-performance talks help you to more deeply engage with the pieces you’ll be hearing, the intentions of the composers, the choice of instruments and instrumental color, and the artistry of the musicians who bring the music to life in performance.
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
“ . . . understands music from the perspective of the performer/performance, the historian, and the innovator, and is able to express that understanding to his audience in a way that is both informative and a lot of fun at the same time.”
—Alicia Ultan, former Director of Education, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Abiquiu Chamber Music Festival, preview: Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord), by Charles Ives
"What a fantastic addition it was having your presentation yesterday! Attendees rightfully went on-and-on about it. I myself was amazed at how you "rounded all the bases" on themes, so much more easily decipherable throughout the performance. Hearing the work in 2018 still astounds me, and your contribution enriched all of us. Deep thanks . . .”
—Madeline Williamson, Artistic Director, Abiquiu Chamber Music Festival
Workshops for Amateur and Professional Musicians
Conducting Workshops and Training
In this workshop for conductors and ensemble directors, you’ll explore the principles of stick technique, dynamics, articulation, energetics, score preparation and rehearsal psychology through experiential learning, discovery, and reflection. Learn to conduct “from the inside out” as you work with colleagues in a warm, supportive environment. Conduct small volunteer ensembles and hone your skills as you learn to better support the musicians and students you work with.
Workshops for Choral Singers
In these workshops you’ll experience foundational aspects of musical expression, understanding, performance, and creativity through easy partner exercises, reflection, and exploration of familiar classics in a relaxed, supportive environment. During the workshops, you’ll have the opportunity to:
• broaden your expressive range and enjoy greater ease of expression
• develop your understanding of how music works and how composers create great music
• comfortably connect and share with listeners when performing
• explore your own musical creativity in ways that are easy, accessible, and fun!
Three sessions, each session is 1.5 hours long, over three weeks or three consecutive days.
“It was like an x-ray into music.”
—Bettina M.
“I just reviewed my two arias and I feel different. It is more exciting and easier to be in the emotion!”
—Chantal Q.
“So much fun, and inspiring! Thank you thank you for bringing us all on this three-week journey.”
—Bee Z.
Playing in Tune, Singing in Tune
Just intonation features beatless intervals and harmonies that are naturally resonant, and very different from the Equal Temperament of the piano and the guitar. In this workshop, you’ll learn a few “rule of thumb” principles to that will help you to experience extraordinary beauty of just-tuned sonorities. Along the way, we’ll refer to the overtone series, the naturally occurring acoustical phenomenon of the “divided string,” that is fundamental to our common musical experience.
Performance PRACTICE for student and amateur musicians
In this workshop we’ll explore the elements of performing: what it means to give and receive attention, how to identify ideas and opportunities for expression in the music, and how to share those ideas and feelings with listeners. Through easy whole group, small group, and partner exercises, using simple musical materials, you’ll have the opportunity to practice performing and to connect more meaningfully with the music you play, the people you make music with, and the listening audience. Come as you are, there’s nothing to prepare!
Sing on Your Instrument / Vocal Style for Musicians
Back in the day, many great instrumentalists were noted for their “singing tone.” What does that mean? How do you make it happen? In this workshop you’ll learn to connect your voice to your instrument, as we explore what it means to play “from the inside out.” We’ll also consider the elements of vocal style as applied to instrumental playing as we look at vowels, consonants, phrase shape and emphasis. Fun, transformative work!
Easy Steps to Improvisation for Classically Trained Musicians
In this workshop, through whole group, small group, and individual exercises, you’ll learn simple strategies to create improvisations that feature familiar musical elements and allow room for playful inspiration, imagination, and expression, as you take ownership of what you already know about music in a completely new way. Along the way, we’ll draw on aspects of language and narrative, easy movement and gesture, everyday expression and dramatic situations – it’s all relevant!
Performance Coaching for Professional Musicians and Ensembles
If you and your ensemble are looking to connect more deeply and meaningfully with the music, your colleagues, and the audience, performance coaching can give you the tools you need to create live performances that are memorable for everyone involved. Work specifically on your repertoire, as we focus on the elements of performing: giving and receiving attention, identifying ideas in the music and opportunities for expression, and meaningfully sharing those ideas and feelings with the audience in real time.
Oliver Prezant, Chris Jonas, arm extension. | Credit: Cynthia Whitney Ward
Professional Development for Teachers and Workshops for K-12 Students
Also available as an in-class workshop or field trip to a gallery or museum for K-12 students and teachers.
“I just wanted to personally thank you for the amazing workshop yesterday. It really opened up something in me that has been dormant for a while now. Sometimes, as musicians, artists, and teachers, we need a "refresher" about our work. We need to remember that it is holistic and integral to everything in our lives. Thank you for helping me remember the magical, juicy sparkle that all of the arts stem from! It was food for my soul.”
—Michelle Artiaga, Santa Fe Public Schools Music Teacher
Discovering the Music of Paintings - Pedagogy
How can a painting provide opportunities for music learning? In this workshop we’ll explore elements that music and visual art share in common, like rhythm, texture, and color/timbre. We’ll also engage with the visual elements of a painting as a way to teach music basics like pitch, dynamics, articulation, and as a jumping off point for easy explorations of musical mood and character. Looking closely at a painting is also a great way to stimulate the imagination: we can create dramatic narratives, dialogues between similar and different elements of the painting, and opportunities for movement that can all be translated into music. You’ll come out of the workshop having explored a variety of structured ideas that you can adapt to your teaching style and the needs and preferences of your students. Sound like fun? You bet - and just wait until you try it!
One session, 2.5 hours.
Conducting for Ensemble Directors
In this workshop you’ll learn basic principles of communicating with musicans in an ensemble: gesture and stick technique, dynamics, articulation, energetics, score preparation and rehearsal psychology. You’ll learn to prepare and conduct “from the inside out,” as you work with colleagues in a warm, supportive environment that focused on experiential learning, discovery, and reflection. You’ll have the opportunity to hone your skills and develop self-awareness as you learn to better support the musicians and students you work with. Participants are invited to play their instruments and/or sing in the workshop ensembles we conduct.
One 3 hour session can provide an introduction to basic skills. Two or more sessions provides a more meaningful professional development experience.
“It starts with me being subtle. I feel more confident to get the best from my students and I realize if they are not delivering what I want, I should look at my own conducting first. I learned to pay attention to my body language. I feel more secure in my ability to connect with the musicians. I have a better feeling for how to pace a rehearsal so as not to lose the focus of the musicians.”
—Suzanne Birrell, Band Director
“Participating in the conducting workshop was so much fun. It was time well spent for me in understanding the perspective of the conductor and playing and learning about the music. I thought you gave each of the participants equal time and enthusiasm and adjusted to their strengths and style. You were direct but encouraging. It felt like a concrete way for me to give of my time to the community, though I felt I learned and benefited just as much. Thanks for the opportunity.”
—Rosemary Gallegos, flutist, community musician
Hold a Tune Project - Pedagogy
What do you do when a student is unable to match pitches or sing a simple melody? In this workshop we’ll explore an easy approach, currently under development, to helping students who are struggling connect their ears to their voices, and we’ll use this as a jumping off point for a discussion of practical ways to help students who face these challenges.
One session, 1.5 hours.
Also available as a clinic for students with Oliver Prezant, under the supervision of a teacher or teacher’s aide.
Easy Steps to Improvisation for Students and Teachers
If improvisation is new to you, this is a perfect opportunity to get started using familiar music basics in creative ways! In this workshop, you’ll learn simple approaches to improvisation that you can integrate into your teaching. Through whole group, small group, and individual work, you’ll learn how to create well-structured, engaging opportunities that will help students to review music basics in ways that are fun and interesting, to create their own music and express themselves, and to take ownership of what they’re learning about music. Along the way, we’ll draw on aspects of language and story, easy movement and gesture, everyday expression and dramatic situations.
Three sessions each session is 1.5 hours.
Also available as an in-class workshop for middle school and high school music students.
Sing on Your Instrument / Vocal Style for Musicians
Once upon a time, in a string orchestra classroom in El Paso Texas, about 30 students became fascinated with how to play words on their instruments as we explored the first phrase of “America the Beautiful.” How to make the first “Oh”? And what about the hard “B” that connects to not one, but three vowels in “beautiful?” And once we explored what it meant to play “from the inside out,” singing the song inside as we played, the sound became as beautiful as the word! Working with vocal style is an awesome way to teach articulation, and to teaching students to make the kind of “singing tone” that was the hallmark of so many great musicians back in the day.
One session, 2 hours, includes a discussion of pedagogy.
Also available as an in-class workshop for middle school and high school ensembles.
Teaching Performing – Performance PRACTICE Pedagogy
Let’s face it: students are often scared to get up and perform in front of others. We’ve all been there. And, as teachers, we’re in a big hurry to get everyone ready for the performance, the competition, the performance assessment, practice, practice, practice, at home, in class, at your lesson, there’s so little time! But practicing your instrument is different than practicing performing. And when it comes time to perform, many students are jumping into the deep end of the pool. What would it be like if we could spend some time teaching and practicing performing early on, or along the way to those critical moments?
Here’s a question for you: out of 100% of the time you’ve spent practicing, what percentage of the time was spent practicing your instrument and rehearsing, and what percentage of the time was spent practicing performing? How do you even do that?
This workshop will provide an exploration of the elements of performing: what it means to give and receive attention, how to identify ideas and opportunities for expression in the music, and how to share ideas and feelings with listeners. Through fun and easy whole group, small group, and partner exercises, using simple musical materials, you’ll learn how to provide your students with the key experiences, understandings, and tools that will help them to meaningfully prepare for performance opportunities.
Also available as an in-class workshop for middle school and high school music students.
Cymbals, tambourines, bells, etc. on cart. | Credit: Oliver Prezant
Drums, metallophones, xylophones. | Credit: Oliver Prezant
Little Xylophones, cymbals, tambourines bells on cart. | Credit: Oliver Prezant
Programs for Arts Organizations and Museums
Over the course of his career, Oliver Prezant has created and presented programs for major arts organizations and local community groups, including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, The Albuquerque Museum of Art, Santa Fe Public Schools, the Santa Fe Community Orchestra, and the Lincoln Center Institute-inspired ArtWorks Program of the Partners in Education Foundation for the Santa Fe Public Schools.
For these and other arts organizations large and small, he has provided in-person presentations for audiences of all ages, from pre-K through high school and college students, to museum patrons and the opera crowd, as well as training and seminars for teachers, teaching artists and opera and museum docents. Media projects and online presentations include preview CDs and radio shows, online workshops, and mixed media audio and video education projects in museum galleries.
Here's what arts administrators and Board Members have said about his programs:
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
“ . . . understands music from the perspective of the performer/performance, the historian, and the innovator, and is able to express that understanding to his audience in a way that is both informative and a lot of fun at the same time.”
—Alicia Ultan, former Director of Education, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Opera Southwest, Puccini and Popcorn, youth and family program
“What whole-hearted enthusiasm . . . I have heard nothing but praise for the event. Your combination of knowledge, skill, and humor is quite special. So, thank you so much for ensuring the success of our first “Puccini and Popcorn.”
—Julius Kaplan, Vice President, Opera Southwest
The Albuquerque Museum: Experiencing Painting Through Music and Movement
“Thanks for that exciting and engaging session at the museum. I can’t wait to practice some of the techniques myself, particularly those related to shape and sound. Some of the docents who attended are already raving—good PR for your upcoming docent workshop . . .”
—Elizabeth Becker, Curator of Education, The Albuquerque Museum