About
“A perfectly balanced - ornate but unpretentious - tapestry of sound, the sort of thing audio engineers only dream of.” (TEMPO).
American violist and interdisciplinary performer, Corey Worley is an ardent defender of contemporary music. He has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Proton, The Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, and members of Ensemble Intercontemporain. Concertizing throughout North American and Europe, he has made appearances at the Ojai Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, Bayerischer Rundfunk Radio Klassik, The Donaueschingen Festival, The Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Musique de Chambre à Giverny, and the Bang on a Can Marathon.
Corey has attended many prestigious academies including the Lucerne Festival Academy, National Arts Center Young Artist Program, The Talis Academy, SoundSCAPE, and Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau. As an orchestral musician, Corey frequently appears with the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Paris Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire.
He started his music education originally as a violinist, later switching to viola under the tutelage of Elias Goldstein. Corey is a double-degree graduate of the Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he studied viola with Peter Slowik while earning a degree in psychology. Later, he was accepted into the prestigious Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) in the class of Pierre-Henri Xuereb and Louis Fima along with the chamber music class of Jean Sulem, earning his Master's degree with "High Distinctions". Violists such as Garth Knox, Laurent Verney, Jack Stulz, and Geneviève Strosser have also closely mentored Corey.
To learn more, please visit my website.
I’m a music instructor with over 10+ years of experience in violin/viola pedagogy, chamber music coaching, audition preparation, and orchestral sectionals. I’ve led workshops, masterclasses, and private lessons in both English and French at several Parisian conservatories, music festivals, and youth orchestras. With remote teaching, I have worked with musicians from Mexico, Japan, Germany, the USA, and more. As a visiting artist-pedagogue, I’ve held classes on contemporary extended techniques and approaching contemporary music.
Student successes include winning positions in several youth orchestras (New York City, Santa Rosa, Chattanooga, etc.), successful auditions for Allstate Orchestra ensembles, soloists with local orchestras, and earned positions in prestigious summer academies (Credo Chamber Music Festival and NYU Summer Strings).
My teaching approach starts with cultivating the love of music. I believe in combining string pedagogical traditions with research in performance psychology to not only develop reliable, healthy technique, but also teach students scientifically proven methods that aid in skill acquisition and developing a positive relationship with performance anxiety. I have studied both in the American and French traditions of music pedagogy and have taken extensive classes in both the USA and in France.
Beyond musical instruction, I have been a panelist for the Illinois High School Allstate Theatre Festival, The Oberlin College + Conservatory, and The Millie Group where I speak about careers in the performing arts.
BM Viola Performance + BA Psychology- Oberlin College and Conservatory '18
MM Viola Performance- Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris '20
My curriculum focuses on developing every domain of musicianship. Students should expect:
-Technical exercises (scales, arpeggios, exercises, études)
-Progressive repertoire assignments
-Listening assignments (asked to listen to performers, composers, music, etc that will give inspiration and context for on-instrument assignments)
-Score analysis (learning how to dissect musical scores to deepen on-instrument assignments)