MACON, Ga. — Carlos Walker violist and student at Mercer University is tuning his strings with several other students for Mercer's 2024 Young Artist Chamber Music Marathon.
"It's thousands of hours of preparations but the magic of it is that we can work so closely with our friends and colleagues," says Walker who's hitting the stage.
Annie Fullard chair of the chamber music program at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University says students and their groups worked together last semester for this upcoming concert. Some students even created original works to perform.
"The students have this powerful ability to bring their music to life and they do it together. It's not just about one individual it's how they're working as a team," explained Fullard.
Chamber music is very intimate. You're talking about small groups like quartets and quintets who are working in small groups as a team," says Julia Morrison director of arts marketing for Mercer.
Morrison adds along with performing classic works by the likes of Beethoven students also get the rush of being part of something bigger.
"Throughout the semester, while we're doing all this work at the end we get a project that we nurtured and it's really our own," says Walker.
The music marathon is Friday, January 12th, and Saturday January 13th at Fickling Hall. It's all free.