“Smarano International Organ Academy was the best summer academy that I have ever attended, and I have attended a lot! Full of good teachers and great people. It’s amazing when you meet the same people there that you met at a competition and how different your perspective is on them and what great people they are. Just shows you how toxic competitions can be. Instead of trying to advance ones career by competitions, a platform like the Smarano Organ Academy seems much more pleasant for all involved.” (one of our students)
“The greater strenght is the wide diversity of available instruments and tutors who are each experts in a particular fields”. (one of our students)
“Very high academic level. Exceptional teachers. Inspiring classes. Friendly atmosphere.” (one of our students)
To get to the Smarano Academy, you have to make a journey that feels a little like a pilgrimage lt’s not a quick trip to a big city. You have to leave the highway north of Trento (Italy) and drive to the beautiful Val di Non in the deep heart of the independent region of the Trentino.
Students, instrument builders, musicologists, and performer-teachers from all over the world have been making this pilgrimage for twentyfive years, because Smarano is a unique cultural platform in Europe: it isn’t just a summer school where students play once in a masterclass and have no time to practice: it is an immersion environment based on historical methods of teaching, where participants attend multiple integrated classes, have four hours a day of scheduled practice time on multiple keybaord instruments and share as much knowledge as they gain from being in this environment.That is why Smarano’s motto is a quotation from Seneca: Docendo Discitur, meaning “it is learned by teaching”.
The Smarano Academy is a true meeting platform where people in our field gather to learn from one another and teach one another about a valuable European cultural heritage: the art of keyboard music before 1800. More than 350 alumni attended the Smarano Academy since 1993.