Help Anastassia Rusanoff continue her oboe studies
Donation protected
Hi, I'm Anastassia Rusanoff
I've played the oboe since I was in 7th grade (I'm 16 now), and everybody has always said I have a lot of talent - band directors, my private oboe teachers, people involved with the youth orchestras I've played in, all say I should develop my potential and become a professional oboist.
My mom attached a couple of videos of me playing - we made an audition video at a professional studio here in New York, that's her accompanying me, and there's some footage mom took with her phone when my youth orchestra played at Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago with me doing a little solo.
I really love the instrument and want to keep growing as an oboe player, and I get a lot of support from family and family friends who have followed my development. I've studied privately, well it seems like all my life, and I spend my Saturdays in the Mannes School of Music's pre-college program.
I have other interests - I play tennis and have won some swimming contests, and of course I like hanging out with my friends and movies and so on, but Oboe is the center of my life.
Now, I have a chance to go to the Interlochen Arts Academy, in Michigan, or the Music College under Moscow Conservatory. I've already been accepted for Interlochen, and I hope to successfully pass admission exams for the College in Moscow this summer, depending on the situation with the COVID virus. (We're still not sure Moscow will even be able to have classes in the fall, but we hope for the best. Interlochen tells us they're ready to go, with medical people on staff and everything.)
My long-term oboe teacher in New York, Ian Shafer, agrees that either of these will be a terrific chance to develop my talent, and a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, Phillip Nodel, is coaching me over Zoom to prepare me for the audition. One of my New York teachers, Lillian Copeland, with whom I study at Mannes Prep, the Saturday Pre-college program of the Mannes School of Music, is herself an Interlochen Academy graduate, so of course she is supportive of that, and they all agree either school will be a fantastic chance for me.
Now, both schools cost a lot of money, and we don't have very much at all. Even with scholarship help, our family share of the Interlochen tuition, room and board amounts to almost 17,000 dollars. The Music College in Moscow will cost approximately the same.
My mom works very hard as a church organist, ballet pianist and private music teacher. She is raising me alone and trying to do the best she can. But we are still struggling.
So I am asking for your help.
I really need funds extremely urgently, kind people.
We hope you'll give what you can!
Organizer
Erika Solaris
Organizer
New York, NY