Summer Break Without Missing a Beat

Utah State University professor R. Dennis Hirst will spend his summer in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. He dreams of sailing on Lake Winnipesaukee in an area known as the oldest summer resort in America.

 

The reality? He’ll be adding to his experience as an arts administrator.

 

Hirst is a recently promoted associate professor in the Department of Music in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. From May to August 2007, he will take a break from his responsibilities as a music professor and director of the Wassermann Piano Festival at Utah State, to become the associate director of the Heifetz International Music Institute.

 

Hirst is among the USU faculty members who take the summer months to pursue professional development activities. Many devote time to book projects or complete field work that isn’t possible during the academic year, and others leave campus to fill professional positions at a variety of prestigious institutions or organizations.

 

Early in his professional academic career, Hirst, fresh out of graduate school, received an offer to become the administrative director at the Sarasota Music Festival. At the same time, he was offered a teaching position at Utah State University.

 

“The Utah State University offer provided multiple opportunities,” Hirst said. “I would be involved in teaching, in making music and in directing an international music festival. I liked the opportunity to be involved in many areas.”

 

Since he joined the faculty ranks at USU, Hirst has taken the bi-annual Wassermann Festival, where he is the artistic and administrative director, to impressive heights. It is a major international piano festival that brings the world’s foremost pianists and pedagogues to the Utah State campus.

 

While Hirst didn’t take the Sarasota job, it led to his summer employment with the Heifetz Institute. After the institute’s associate director left, the job was offered to the individual at Sarasota who had offered Hirst a position in Florida. Unable to accept the Heifetz offer but remembering Hirst, he recommended him for the New Hampshire position.

 

So, it was early in spring 2007 that Hirst received a call from Daniel Heifetz, founder and director of the Heifetz International Music Institute.

 

“I didn’t really know Daniel,” Hirst said. “I did know he was a prominent violinist, but I didn’t know much about his institute. I was surprised and pleased when he asked to speak with Dennis Hirst, ‘the bassoonist.’”

 

While much of Hirst’s work involves the piano — he is a performer as well as educator — he has a distinguished record in solo and orchestral bassoon performances. In fact, he was recently involved in two world premieres — “Ophelia in Seville” by Miguel del Aguila, and the modern performance edition of Christian Ludwig Dietter’s “Concerto Concertant No. 1 for two bassoons and orchestra,” a work he edited and restored.

 

After his conversation with Heifetz, Hirst began to research the institute. What he found excited him. The institute is designed to provide an intense musical experience, providing musicians the opportunity to develop the expressive potential while encouraging technical growth. The intensive schedule includes private lessons, practicing, classes, solo performances and chamber music.

 

The institute is a talent and skill-based festival. Admission is based on those criteria, not the ability to pay tuition. It is a professional training festival.

 

Prior to arriving in Wolfeborro, Hirst will spend three weeks at the festival’s headquarters near Baltimore, Md., then, it’s on to New Hampshire. Home to the institute is the Brewster Academy on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. It’s there that Hirst will step into his non-stop administrative responsibilities.

 

“This will be a significant change for me,” Hirst said. “With the Wassermann Festival, I’m pretty much a one man band. At the Heifetz Institute, there is an impressive list of faculty, and I’ll have a support staff.”

 

At the end of the summer, Hirst will return to USU with impressive administrative skills under his belt, and valuable contacts as well.

 

“The guest artists at the institute represent the very finest,” he said. “I’ll associate with an impressive and talented faculty, and all this furthers my professional training.”

 

Hirst is also pleased that he’ll have daily contact with chamber artists and the string faculty.