Lake Zurich teen attends prestigious summer music academy

EGG HARBOR, Wis. – Jonathon Rittle, a talented young musician from Lake Zurich, spent the past two weeks in Door County, Wisconsin, studying at Birch Creek Music Performance Center.

Rittle, a student at Lake Zurich High School, was among 63 musicians from throughout the country to attend the Symphony session at the prestigious academy whose mission is to provide intensive, performance-based instruction to promising young musicians by immersing them in a professional, mentoring environment.

Birch Creek celebrates its 49th concert season this year and continues to support a student-to-faculty ratio of about 2:1. This provides students with an abundance of personal attention from the faculty mentors, who represent top music educators and performers from around the country. Students are given the opportunity to hone their technical skills and learn all the aspects of life as a professional musician firsthand. During their two-week residency, students attending the Symphony session performed six concerts alongside their teachers in front of paying concertgoers.

Ricardo Castaneda was the program director of the Symphony session. This year marked his 27th year on faculty at Birch Creek and 24th year as program director. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music performance from Northwestern University. Castaneda is principal oboist with the Chicago Sinfonietta and solo English horn with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.

Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, is a residential summer music academy for advanced young musicians. With a performance emphasis, students are taught by nationally known performers and educators during the day and perform in concerts alongside them at night.

The four sessions focus on Percussion, Steel Pan and World Music, Symphony and Big Band Jazz.

Concert and session dates are posted at BirchCreek.org/Tickets.