UMaine Preps for Annual Youth Music Camp in July
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3756
ORONO — The majority of University of Maine students have left the Orono campus for the summer, but there will still be plenty of students around, particularly in July, when more than 400 young musicians from grades six through 12 arrive for Maine Summer Youth Music Camp.
The 24th annual youth music junior camp for musicians in grades six through nine runs July 11-16 at the Class of 1944 Building and Maine Center for the Arts. Senior camp, for students in grades 10 through 12, is July 18-30.
Junior and senior music camps are exciting and unusual opportunities for you musicians to practice and perform instruments of their choice and also participate at the same time in several choral groups, says Chip Farnham, associate professor of music and director of bands at UMaine. It is a time they can focus without distraction on music.
Farnham has assembled a staff of two to three dozen music or voice instructors from UMaine, colleges or universities across the country and from high schools in Maine.
“The staff is a combination of public school music educators, college faculty members or students majoring in music education here at the university,” Farnham says.
All musicians within the appropriate grade divisions are welcome, from novice to All-State participants, he says. While individual piano and guitar lessons will be available, and help with other instruments from the staff, Farnham suggests that music camp participants have basic knowledge of an instrument.
Costs for the summer camps are available by calling the UMaine School of Performing Arts at (207) 581-4702, Additional information and an application form is available online at the School of Performing Arts website at www.umaine.edu/spa/.
After an audition, staff will assign students to different groups based on ability. The schedule allows students to both play an instrument and participate in choral groups.
Room and board is available in campus dormitories and campus dining halls.
Students come mostly from Maine, but usually some are from out-of-state — students whose parents have heard of the camp or students whose families are taking extended vacations in Maine and whose children want to take a few weeks off to concentrate on music. “It’s a wonderful group of kids,” he says.
Farnham says the concentration on music and music alone makes the music camps both educational and exciting.
“There’s no question that in the public schools they get good instruction,” says Farnham, “but they also take other classes. They come here and just focus on their music.”
Visiting teachers and conductors include, for the junior camp, Mark Fonder, professor of music at Ithaca College in New York, who will direct the symphonic and concert bands, Jay Nelson, from Presque Isle High School, who will work with the chorus, George Anzivino from the Burnell School in Bridgewater, Mass., jazz ensembles, and Patrick Moore from Houlton High School, who’ll direct the musical theatre.
Staffing the senior camp activities will be Farnham, symphonic band, Chris White, director of UMaine sports bands, the concert band, Anthony Maiello, director of instrumental studies at George Mason University, Fairfax, Va., who will be guest conductor of the senior camp symphonic and concert bands, Robert Westerberg, York High School, chorus, Dennis Cox, a professor of music and director of choral activities at UMaine, Peter Bouffard, a lecturer in guitar at University of Nebraska, who will direct the jazz ensembles, and Jay Nelson of Presque Isle, musical theatre.
The deadline for applications for both junior and senior music camps is May 24.