Mission

Hidden Valley Music Seminars was founded to offer training opportunities of excellence in music and the arts. Focused primarily on young artists, Hidden Valley also offers classes to adults and fosters selected community arts activities. It operates major programs in chamber music, orchestral and choral music, opera, and dance.

The Big Idea

Hidden Valley has undertaken a major campus improvement project over the past four years, enlarging the dance studio, constructing a new dining hall and renovating classroom spaces. The final step is building Hartmann House, a six-room residential center that features key upgrades to 20 existing dormitory rooms, including queen beds, air-conditioning and an accessible shower for guests with wheelchairs. Hartmann House will accommodate 1,800 annual participants in core programs such as master classes, orchestral institutes, flute camps, opera ensembles, Road Scholar weeks, and Orff Schulwerk teacher trainings. Students and faculty treasure the intimacy when groups with shared interests live, eat and learn together. Hartmann House will allow 30-percent more of Hidden Valley’s program participants the opportunity to stay on campus rather than in hotels.

Founder Peter Meckel started with an old barn and turned it into a small-scale opera house in Carmel Valley.

- Roy Malan, concertmaster (1974-2014), San Francisco Ballet Orchestra