Summer music camp for kids through PYCh and our music festival OFF the HOOK has morphed over the past three years. We started in 2013 with a single intensive day of Suzuki & the Fiddler, very well attended, with a morning packed with prepared Suzuki music and likewise, fiddling, in the afternoon. Hugely attended public concert showcase in downtown Fort Collins in Old Town Plaza. The word was that we need to make it longer. We did! three days of Suzuki & the Fiddler in 2014 expanding the same premise, learning more music and sticking with prepared Suzuki and fiddle music.
This year we jumped into something a little broader, a little more inclusive, a little more geared toward celebrating music making and exploring the Arts in general. A revelry in creativity. With a stellar faculty from New York — Meryl Danziger (founder of Music House — google it! You’ll be jealous you’re not a little kid anymore.) and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of the Voxare String Quartet. Add the top teachers in Colorado with Dalcroze instructor Katie Couch and violinist, Robyn Julyan of Regis University of Denver. Fort Collins teachers Vi Wickam, fiddle extraordinaire and artist Linda Roth bring us full circle. Great team and even better curriculum. Theatre, art, fiddling, fun new repertoire for violin and viola, moving to music (Dalcroze), theory and tone production, and the initial explorations of music instruments. These kids are walking away after one day saying, “Awesome!” and “Best camp ever!”. Best of all, “Can’t wait to come back next year!”
Next year we’ll still be here. Keep your eyes open for our announcements. We never like to sit still. We’ll be plotting and planning, expanding and percolating all year. Is your instrument next on the list of additions? You’ll have to keep checking. But for now, check out these gorgeous photos, taken by our very own, Loni Obluda throughout the day. We’ll keep posting them so keep coming back and seeing what we’re up to next.