Catching Rising Stars : Music: A new SummerFest ’90 program aims to help promising young musicians develop their ensemble performance skills.

When the proverbial tourist asks a jaded New Yorker, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” the classic reply is “Practice! Practice! Practice!” It may the oldest joke in the book, but it also symbolizes the mystery surrounding a concert artist’s rite of passage from stellar student to polished performer.

A new program at SummerFest ‘90, a two-week residency for nine promising young musical professionals, aims to develop their ensemble performance skills in the refined art of chamber music.

Unlike the static coaching available in master classes, a typical offering of music festivals and a feature the La Jolla festival has included since its inception, the concept of the new “rising stars” program is to integrate seasoned players into performing ensembles with the young musicians.

“When we play with these young musicians--as opposed to just coaching them--we have more of a chance to nurture their skills rather than just criticizing them,” said Julie Rosenfeld, first violinist of the Colorado String Quartet. She and her ensemble have returned to perform at SummerFest for their second consecutive year.

At SummerFest’s 4 p.m. Sunday concert at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium, Rosenfeld will join three young string players in Schubert’s D Minor Quartet “Death and the Maiden.” She will play second violin in this ensemble, however, relinquishing her customary lead position to 21-year-old Los Angeles violinist Sheryl Staples.

“It is easier to meld the group from this position,” Rosenfeld said, “because I can hear the goings on of the middle voices better.” She noted that this approach follows that of Vermont’s Marlboro Festival, the granddaddy of American summer music festivals and the only other festival with this kind of instruction.

Rosenfeld added that teaching in this situation has reciprocal benefits.

“Playing regularly in my own string quartet is pretty insular,” she said. “When I am playing with these younger players, I have to stop and verbalize my musical choices, rather than relying on the more intuitive communication among the quartet regulars.”

Even for those younger players who have some track record in chamber music, this format offers new perspectives, according to En-Sik Choi, a 20-year-old violist whose string quartet Borimeo won second prize in May at an international

chamber music competition in Evian, France.

“When you are playing with people you don’t know, a whole set of different ideas emerges. I’m eager to learn what they think and how they describe things about the piece,” said Choi, who will play the Franck F Minor Piano Quintet with SummerFest veteran pianist David Golub and three other string players.

For some young performers, the “rising stars” program is a welcome relief from the monastic restrictions of solitary practice.

“The attraction of coming for two weeks is being able to be social with something that is normally a very lonely thing,” said 18-year-old pianist Max Levinson. Kenneth Bookstein, the group’s other pianist, also welcomed the program’s change of pace.

“I’ve spent the last couple of months working with electronic instruments and computers,” said Bookstein, “and it’s a great change to play again with live musicians.”

As keyboard players, however, both Levinson and Bookstein are leery of being drafted into merely accompanying showpieces for flashy violinists.

“I don’t accompany; I play sonatas,” Levinson said. Traditionally, sonatas for solo instruments and keyboard are written with equal challenge to each part.

Voicing the soloist’s point of view, violinist Laura Frautschi pointed out that having adequate time at SummerFest to work out a piece with a pianist is a welcome luxury.

“Normally, during the year, I end up paying a pianist for an hour or two to throw something together for a performance or a competition. I never have the time to work with the pianist on an equal basis as colleagues,” Frautschi said.

Levinson and Bookstein will perform Schubert’s F Minor Fantasy for piano four hands on the Sunday program at Mandeville. Although the duo was slated to play Ravel’s “Mother Goose” Suite, that plan was sabotaged when Emanuel Ax and Yoko Ax unexpectedly substituted the Ravel piece on SummerFest’s opening night program last week. Levinson and Bookstein spent the first part of this week scrambling for another four-hand selection.

“It’s good practice for the real musical world,” said Bookstein philosophically. “They’re always throwing some new piece at you and saying, ‘Quick, learn this!’ ”

SummerFest artistic director Heiichiro Ohyama selected all of the “rising stars” participants, with the exception of Santa Barbara cellist Holly Reeves, who was drafted on recommendation of Rosenfeld to replace a cellist sidelined by an auto accident just before the festival opened. Although Ohyama did not hold open auditions for the program, most of the musicians had played for him in various contexts. A few, including Staples, Levinson and Choi, had played with Ohyama’s orchestra at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica.

“I could have done auditions,” Ohyama explained, “but I wanted to start this year with the best possibilities. I did my own investigation and scouting for the musicians.”

Always conscious of keeping connections with San Diego’s own musical community, Ohyama selected San Diego Symphony principal violist Yun Jie Liu--at 28 the oldest participant--and La Jolla native Bookstein.

Although the nine musicians gathered for the La Jolla program are at different stages of their musical education and--for a few like Liu--their performing careers, none is banking exclusively on a career in chamber music.

“A lot of us are doing a little bit of everything, from solo playing to orchestra work,” Staples said. “For example, I do a lot of concertmaster work; I’ve been concertmaster of the Young Musicians’ Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles for the last four years. I also teach a little. Trying to build on every front at the same time can be difficult.”

As these aspiring musicians pursue each opportunity from the rarefied air of La Jolla’s SummerFest to occasional jobs in pick-up orchestras, one requirement is constant: Practice! Practice! Practice!