Background

Hotchkiss has a long history of offering summer programming on its campus. Some of those programs provided educational and recreational opportunities for the underprivileged, including the Riis Summer Camp (1909-1924) and the Greater Opportunities Program (1963-1973), while some offered more traditional summer enrichment. In 2003, Hotchkiss reinvented its summer curriculum once more, introducing Hotchkiss Summer Portals, an intensive three-week program in chamber music and environmental science.

 

Top: Riis Summer Camp, c. 1910
Bottom: Greater Opportunities Program, 1968

 

 

 

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The Origin of SummerPortals

The Portals program, designed for students ages
12 to 15, has roots in a 2002 Summer School Report commissioned by former Head of School Robert H. Mattoon. After the Report was issued, Hotchkiss began discussions about summer school. Under consideration were two subjects: music, to take advantage of the School’s new Esther Eastman Music Center, and environmental science, utilizing the 550-acre campus with its woodland, lakes and streams.

 

In one of those early meetings between Robert J. Barker, now
Dean of Summer Programs, and Robert Blocker, Dean of the
Yale School of Music, the name Summer Portals was born.
“In a very real sense, Robert Blocker is one of the Founding Fathers
of Portals, ” Barker says, adding that it was Blocker who introduced
him to Melvin Chen, now Artistic Director of the Summer Portals
Chamber Music Program.

 

Top: The Portals office reflects the summer program's students, who come from all over the world.
Bottom: Dean of Summer Programs Robert Barker with a student

 

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Summer Portals Environmental Science

“Come get muddy!” is the opening line of the Environmental Science catalog, leaving no doubt that the Portals science program is all about learning by doing. Designed to be taken in a three-part sequence, culminating with the oldest students doing the work of scientists in the field using HabitatNet, Environmental Science Portals immerses students in the biology of Lake Wononscopomuc and the woods, fields and farmland that surround it. The program culminates with specific projects supervised by Portals’ faculty and scientists from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. It also offers students the opportunity to meet and talk one-on-one with environmental scientists.

 

 

Photos: Students in the field

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Summer Portals Chamber Music

The Portals Chamber Music program offers intensive instruction for student musicians, ages 12 to 15, and vocalists, ages 15 to 18. Focusing on chamber music, students of violin, piano, cello or viola take part in individual instruction, master classes, formal concerts and impromptu performances.

 

Portals music faculty includes a resident quartet of talented chamber musicians, in addition to instruction by musicians from three visiting quartets.

 

Vocal students study vocal chamber music in much the same way, working with Portals resident faculty singing in trios, quartets, octets as well as taking master classes with visiting vocalists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A concert in the Esther Eastman Music Center's Katherine M. Elfers Hall

 

 

To learn more about Summer Portals today, please visit the Summer Programs section of our website.

 

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