Instrumental and Composition Program Application Deadlines

Early Application Deadline (NO FEE): February 1, 2025
Late Deadline ($35 application fee): March 1, 2025
Scholarship Application Due: March 5, 2025
Notification of Acceptance: March 15, 2025
Letter of Agreement and Deposit Due: April 1, 2025
Scholarships are available!

Attend ACMI! A new music summer festival for emerging musicians and composers

The Akropolis Chamber Music Institute at Bay View is a 9-day summer festival that brings together creative composers and innovative performers in the picturesque lakeshore town of Petoskey, MI. A small and close-knit gathering, ACMI’s goal is to launch your career as a 21st century artist through the highest level of performance, dedicated 1-on-1 mentorship, direct collaboration with Akropolis including performing side by side with Akropolis members, and lasting relationships.

For 9 days, the 14 instrumentalists and 4 composers selected will work intensely with Akropolis: living, working, performing, and forming a community as an artistic collective. ACMI is housed within the Bay View Music Festival, the longest continuously operating chamber music festival in the United States, situated at the heart of one of the country’s most beautiful vacation areas, including beaches, bike paths, hiking, and downtown Petoskey. 

Akropolis welcomes individual instrumentalists and pre-formed ensembles to apply for ACMI. Pre-formed ensembles are also guaranteed a world premiere commission from one of the 4 selected ACMI composers.

Guest composition and performance faculty, Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott is a French hornist, composer, and educator.  As a composer, he creates works that he calls “Urban Classical Music.” His mission is to broaden the scope of American music theory and composition, with the intention of introducing performers, teachers, students and audiences to the richness and value of our very own, American music. A GRAMMY winning artist, Jeff Scott is the Associate Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo and was a member of the Imani Winds for more than 20 years.

In 2019 Jeff composed a 25-minute composition for Akropolis, Homage to Paradise Valley, after receiving a coveted Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning grant. Recently he has composed for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and his Für Meinen Vater was premiered at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. He serves on Akropolis’ Board of Directors. At ACMI he will not only provide instruction to performers and composers, but detail his collaborative process with Akropolis, talk about his many recent commissions as a composer, and his many years on the road with Imani Winds.

What ACMI offers you:

  • Extensive rehearsal, instruction, & mentorship with Akropolis
  • Instruction and conversation with 2x Grammy-nominated composer/performer, Jeff Scott
  • Multiple recitals on which to perform brand new and pre-existing contemporary works side by side with Akropolis members
  • Community engagement opportunities in northern Michigan
  • Studio edited recordings and videos of the world premiere works
  • Personalized career advancement strategy workshops
  • 1-on-1 mentoring with Akropolis members
  • Private lessons with Akropolis members
  • For composers, 3 workshops with Akropolis on a new work composed for Akropolis
  • Opportunities to perform/share music with ACMI fellows
  • Time for informal social and artistic gatherings
  • Ample leisure and community building time

As chamber music leaders, we can’t wait to share this experience with you in one of our favorite places on earth!

About the ACMI Summer Festival

August 2 – 10, 2025 in Petoskey, MI

Festival Overview

The Akropolis’ Chamber Music Institute at Bay View is a 9-day summer festival bringing together talented composers with innovative chamber performers, located in the picturesque lake shore town of Petoskey, Michigan. ACMI’s goal is to help launch your creative career as a 21st century artist through instruction in high-level performance, entrepreneurial thinking, and community collaboration.

For 9 days, the 14 instrumentalists and 4 composers selected will work intensely with Akropolis: living, working, performing side by side, and forming a community as an artistic collective. As chamber music leaders, we can’t wait to share this experience with you in one of our favorite places on earth!

Who Should Apply to ACMI?

In ACMI’s fourth year, we are accepting 14 instrumentalists and 4 composers. All applications over the age of 18 (including undergraduates, graduates, and professionals) are welcome to apply. There is no upper age limit. We capped the total participants at 18 to create an intimate, highly individualized residency experience with the most access possible to Akropolis.

Individual Instrumentalists
The following instrumentalists are encouraged to apply! If you do not see your instrument or discipline in the following list, please send us an email at info@akropolisquintet.org and we’d be happy to consider your application. The following instrumentalists are encouraged to apply:

Woodwinds
Piano
Percussion
Brass
Strings

Composers
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional level composers are encouraged to apply! If you are currently a student, a concentration or degree pursuit in composition is encouraged for applicants, but not required.

Pre-Formed Ensembles
ACMI encourages applications from pre-formed chamber ensembles. Pre-formed ensembles are also guaranteed a world premiere commission from one of the 4 selected ACMI composers. At this time, we are not able to offer a group tuition pricing, so each individual member would each be responsible for the individual ACMI tuition rate. Members of a pre-formed ensemble are eligible for individual scholarships.

Working with Akropolis

As a GRAMMY® nominated “sonically daring ensemble” with a “wonderfully fresh sound” (BBC Music Magazine) we have won several national competitions and graced the Billboard Charts three times, all in an ensemble type that has virtually no precedent in classical music. We found our voice through the reed quintet, and we’ve never looked back. Since our founding 16 years ago, Akropolis has fielded thousands of individuals’ questions about how to succeed in classical and contemporary music and we have given more than 300 master classes, coachings, and entrepreneurship workshops at colleges and universities of all stripes.

As leaders in the chamber music community, ACMI is our opportunity to help the next generation of artists stand out in this incredibly niche and competitive field. This is the festival WE would have wanted to attend as early career new music chamber musicians, and we want to help you have a vibrant, impactful, and artistically fulfilling career. Our goal is to help you thrive and make your artistic mark! If we can do it as an ensemble that started as nothing more than an undergraduate reed quintet, so can you.

A Typical Day at ACMI

The Bay View environment mirrors life as a professional independent artist and is modeled after how Akropolis has worked and grown together for the last decade. Each day offers a balance of coaching, rehearsal, composing, practice, creative brainstorming and actualization, and personal free time. Akropolis values individual free time as much as rehearsal time, and will place a heavy emphasis on participants having as much time to refresh and recharge as they do to better themselves and their craft.

As an example, a typical performer day would be:

  • Free time (e.g. practice, meditation, or a walk)
  • Breakfast
  • Private lesson or career development conversation with Akropolis / chamber rehearsal
  • Lunch
  • Free time (afternoon beach, sun, physical exercise, etc.)
  • Recording session / rehearsal
  • Dinner
  • Free time (attend a live performance, visit Petoskey, etc.)

As an example, a typical composer day would be:

  • Free time (e.g. sketches, meditation, or a walk)
  • Breakfast
  • Composition time / career development conversation / workshopping your music with Akropolis
  • Lunch
  • Free time (afternoon beach, sun, physical exercise, etc.)
  • Recording session / rehearsal / or workshop of your music
  • Dinner
  • Free time (attend a live performance, visit Petoskey, etc.)

About the Bay View Music Festival

ACMI is housed within the Bay View Music Festival, the longest continuously operating chamber music festival in the United States, situated at the heart of one of the country’s most beautiful resort areas and Chautauquas.

We are proud to be partnering with this historic festival. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan’s Little Traverse Bay in northern Michigan, the Bay View community is situated at the heart of one of the United States’ most beautiful resort areas. Students find the natural beauty of the area, the experience and dedication of the artists, and the warm support of the community a wonderful and rewarding experience. The Festival lays claim as the longest continuously operating chamber music festival in the United States and continues to impress the college and post-college students year after year who come seeking additional training, perspective, refreshment, and the inspiration needed to pursue a career in the arts. We are delighted to report that graduates of the program, much like the faculty, are actively involved in the performing arts all over the world as soloists, ensemble members, administrators, and faculty.

Visit https://www.bayviewassociation.org/performingarts/musicfestival/ to learn more.

Application to ACMI must be done here at https://akropolisquintet.org/acmi, not on the Bay View website. 

What Performers Will Do at ACMI

ACMI provides unparalleled opportunities to learn, perform, and collaborate while soaking in the sandy beaches and beauty of Northern Michigan.

The 14 instrumentalists accepted will receive:

  • The opportunity to work in chamber ensembles, including performing side-by-side with at least one Akropolis member
  • Lessons and coachings with Akropolis
  • Multiple performance opportunities
  • The opportunity to give the world premiere performance of a new work created by one of the ACMI composers
  • Recordings of all performances
  • Individualized entrepreneurship and career development sessions
  • Lifelong relationships and professional connections with participant and Akropolis colleagues

What Composers Will Do at ACMI

Having commissioned and premiered over 150 works, Akropolis would not exist without living composers and their unique voices. In building this festival, we not only wanted to have chamber music at ACMI’s heart, but new music as well. The 4 composers in-residence at ACMI will create a new work for Akropolis which will be extensively workshopped at ACMI and premiered during the 25/26 season, as well as a new work for the ACMI instrumentalists which will be premiered at ACMI.

The 4 composers accepted will receive:

  • A live premiere of their newly composed work by an ACMI artist ensemble participating in the festival
  • A live world premiere of their new work for Akropolis during Akropolis’ 25/26 season
  • Workshops with Akropolis on both works
  • A high quality audio and video recording of the work created for ACMI fellows
  • Dedicated composing time
  • One-on-one consultations with Akropolis
  • A private lesson with guest faculty, Jeff Scott
  • The sheet music for both their works published in the Akropolis Collection catalog
  • The opportunity to share and discuss music and concepts with ACMI composers and instrumentalists in formal and informal sessions
  • Individualized entrepreneurship and career development sessions
  • Lifelong relationships and professional connections with participant and Akropolis colleagues

What Pre-Formed Ensembles Will Do at ACMI

Pre-formed ensembles will do everything that all instrumentalists at ACMI do, but they will also have the opportunity to perform their own repertoire on concerts during ACMI, as well as a dedicated audio and video recording session of their own music. This is in addition to the new piece by an ACMI composer that they will premiere and record at ACMI.

Individual Tuition: $1,800

This tuition is the same if you are an instrumentalist, composer, or an instrumentalist applying with a pre-formed ensemble. At this time, we are not able to offer a discounted tuition rate for pre-formed ensembles. 

Scholarships are available and furnished on the basis of financial need. Please see below.

The costs of housing, meals, building maintenance, staff, faculty, and production, in addition to costs incurred by the Bay View festival which are passed on to Akropolis, prohibit us from making ACMI a tuition free program right now, but we are committed to building the long term support necessary to provide increasing scholoship support to make that happen in the future.

Tuition Includes

Attending ACMI

  • Spending 11 days (including travel days) living and learning with Akropolis in beautiful Northern Michigan!
  • Lessons and coachings with Akropolis
  • Multiple performance opportunities both in traditional recital hall venues and non-traditional community spaces
  • The opportunity to give the world-premiere performance of a new work created by one of the ACMI composers
  • Composers receive a live premiere of their newly composed work by an ACMI artist ensemble participating in the festival
  • Composers receive the opportunity to write a new reed quintet work for Akropolis
  • Composers receive a studio-style recording of their work for Akropolis
  • Career and entrepreneurial consultations with Akropolis
  • Instrumentalists and Composers receive an archival audio WAV file and a link to a three-camera-shot video of their chamber performances
  • Spending 10 days living and learning with Akropolis in beautiful Northern Michigan!

Room and Board

  • A single room with double/triple occupancy in Crist Hall on the Bay View campus for 9 days
  • Participants can expect 1 or 2 roommates. It is dorm-style housing with shared bathrooms. Participants usually are housed only with ACMI participants, but sometimes will be roomed with participants from other Bay View programs.
  • Breakfast/lunch/dinner Monday-Friday; breakfast/lunch on Saturday; brunch and dinner on Sunday

Tuition does not include your travel to and from Bay View, MI 

Shuttle to and from location Airports
$35 one way from Pellston (20 min. away) or $75 one way from Traverse City (1.5 hrs away). After you’ve been accepted to the program, you will receive an email from Matt McFarlane, Director of Operations at the Bay View Festival, to coordinate your transportation and payment.

Payment of Tuition if You’re Accepted

Upon acceptance to the Festival, a deposit of $350 is due by April 1, 2025.

The deposit is required to reserve your place at ACMI and is applied toward your tuition. If the participant cancels, the deposit is non-refundable.

ACMI and/or Bay View reserve the right to dismiss any applicant from the festival at any time, with no refund, for reasons including but not limited to disorderly conduct, breaking ACMI’s rules, breaking local, state or federal laws, or for not adhering to Bay View’s rules and regulations.

Payment plans, after the initial $350 reserving your place at ACMI, can be designed with the help of the Bay View Festival. Tuition must be paid in full prior to the festival, but creative measures can be designed if necessary.

Tuition will be paid electronically or by check to Bay View Festival.

Scholarships

To make ACMI accessible to applicants with financial need, Akropolis applies scholarships to the tuition of participants based on a scholarship application. You may indicate if you wish to receive this scholarship application by checking the box within the full ACMI application. After your ACMI application is submitted, you will receive the scholarship application via email, and we request that you submit it by March 5th, 2025.

Scholarships will be determined after receiving all applications and reviewing the need of all applicants accepted to the festival. Participants will be accepted without regard to their financial need. Then, among the accepted applicants, any scholarship applications will be reviewed.

For pre-formed ensembles, each individual will be considered for a scholarship separately, on their own, and any members of a pre-formed ensemble interested in a scholarship should apply individually for a scholarship. The person completing the ACMI application on behalf of the ensemble can indicate in the application if any members of the ensemble would like to apply for a scholarship.

Refund Policy

No refunds are given after July 1st. No refunds are made for participants arriving late, leaving early, or canceling. The application fee is non-refundable for applicants who are not accepted. For accepted applicants the application fee is applied to your tuition payment.

QUESTIONS? EMAIL US!