Menlo Alumni Return to Campus for Music@Menlo Internship
By Caitlin Kenney, Music@Menlo Publications & Publicity Intern
Music@Menlo,
the renowned chamber music festival based at Menlo School, offers an
Internship Program in Arts Administration each summer. This program is
rigorous and integral to the success of the festival. Each year, nearly
100 college students from schools across the country go through an
extensive application process, and 25 or so are carefully selected from
the wide range of applicants. Once selected, the interns are given the
opportunity to partially run various aspects of the festival, from
development to merchandising and production.
This year, 27
interns traveled to Music@Menlo for its tenth-anniversary season, and of
those, four are Menlo School alumni. Graduates Claire Gilhuly ’08, Amy
Wipfler ’09, Laura Grimbergen ’11 and Andrew Klingelhofer ’12 have
returned to the place where they got their start and are excited to
experience Menlo from a new perspective.
Amy Wipfler, who
graduated from Menlo School three years ago, is now a rising senior and
art history major at Tufts University in Massachusetts. She is the
Artist Liaison Intern—a job that consists of scheduling and making
arrangements for the artists and generally making sure they feel welcome
and receive everything they need during the festival. Amy tackles her
duties with vigor. She says, “Not many internship programs give you as
much independence and responsibility in your tasks as Music@Menlo does.”
She is glad to be back at her high school, although she finds it “a bit
odd to be on the other side of the student-employee line.” But she says
it is “nice, as well, because you know all the ins and outs of the
school and feel very assured in where everything is and who to call for
different services on campus.”
Claire Gilhuly, a
history major at Duke University, is one of four Event Planning and
Catering Interns at the festival. She and her fellow Event Planning and
Catering Interns “organize all the food and design all the parties for
festival patrons.” Like Amy, she considers it “a nice advantage to know
the campus so well already.” On returning to her old school, she says,
“I love being back at Menlo School in a new capacity. I have a new
appreciation for the beauty of the campus.” Claire discovered the
Music@Menlo internship program through the Menlo alumni career database.
Laura Grimbergen volunteered
for Music@Menlo for three years while attending Menlo School before
becoming a Merchandising and Sales Intern this summer. She thinks there
is “something magical about how the campus transforms with the
convergence of artists, students, interns and patrons” and is really
excited to be back and have the chance to “catch up with some of the
Menlo School faculty and staff.” Her family has attended the festival
every summer since its inaugural season in 2003, as her mom “has known
David Finckel since childhood.” Laura currently studies economics at
Yale University, where she just finished her freshman year.
Andrew Klingelhofer, who
graduated from Menlo only a few months ago, is a Production and Stage
Crew Intern, and he will be starting at New York University in the fall
to study musical theater. Like Claire, he discovered the program through
Menlo School, and though he hasn’t been gone long, he states, “It’s
nice to be back.” His primary goal for the festival is to “gain the
skills and knowledge of how to be prepared while putting on a
production, whether it be for a festival like Music@Menlo or a show.” He
thinks that “being a part of such an amazing experience can only be the
beginning of a lifelong adventure.”