Cherry Hill East rising freshman Matteo Lucchi received the Alice Downs Scholarship for Young Violinists earlier this year, which put him in a two-week program with the Philadelphia International Music Festival.
The scholarship – funded by the Gumnut Group LLC of Haddonfield and presented by the Rotary Club of Haddonfield Foundation – was founded in memory of Valma Lock Hunter by her son David and Gumnut Group in 2010, when she turned 90.
The award has continued since her death in 2020 and is open to violin and viola players ages 10 to 18 years old in Camden County. To qualify, students had to write a 250- to 300-word essay on why the violin is the coolest instrument in the orchestra.
Lucchi’s answer? Because it sounds like a human voice.
After he received the scholarship, the youth auditioned for the two-week program – where tuition is $3,000 – and was part of the Philadelphia International Music Festival’s summer symphony program last month at Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
The program was started 26 years ago by Sandy Marcucci and Kim Fisher, second violin in the Philadelphia Orchestra. Lucchi has been playing the instrument for eight years and has performed with the Rosa International Middle School orchestra and with the Temple Music Prep taught by the Center for Gifted Young Musicians.
“What got me interested in (playing violin) is that my parents played it and I wanted to sound as good as them … (and) I just like to play,” Lucchi said.
During the two-week music festival program, he was able to sharpen his skills by playing in a symphony alongside both string and non-string instruments and a quartet, and practiced sight reading daily.
“I learned more how to practice for a longer time,” Lucchi noted, “and I also learned how to work better with other people.”
His mother, Mary, who still plays violin, noted that practicing in a quartet helps an individual become a better musician because there is no conductor.
“You learn to play together with other people without (a conductor) showing you where to go,” she said. “You guys have to do it together only.”
The program’s schedule is music intensive. Students begin the day with orchestra rehearsal from 9:30 until noon, break for lunch, then they have an hour of music elective, which can be ear training, choir, music history, music theory or composition. After that is private practice and two hours of chamber music, or, in Lucchi’s case, quartet.
Dinner is followed by a concert with a performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, a student concert or a solo performance.
“It’s really a very intense program with little down time but we’ve structured it so the students thrive in this atmosphere,” Marcucci explained. “We’ve built in elements of the program purposefully to give everyone the energy to keep up that pace.”
Lucchi worked on a total of four pieces, two for orchestra, two for quartet and one he’s already worked on with faculty for his solo. With the festival, he had the opportunity to perform in orchestra, chamber and as a soloist. He performed Glinka’s “Overture” and Borodin’s Polovtsian dances under the baton of Maestro Thomas Hong, music director of the University of Pennsylvania Orchestras.
“I just like it,” noted Lucchi, who will continue playing violin at Cherry Hill East. “I like the sound and the repertoire you can play.”
To learn more about the Alice Downs Scholarship, visit https://philadelphiamusicfestival.org/scholarships-for-music-camps/the-alice-downs-scholarship-for-summer-orchestra-programs-at-pimf/.
