Whether your child is a musician, an explorer of the arts and sciences, a hands-on doer or just a budding audience member, there’s something at Off the Hook Arts SummerFest for them! Some are FREE, all are low-cost or with scholarships available. Some require registration so keep your eyes open for that details! From classes and workshop to interactive concerts and performance opportunities, come check out our Kid’s Summer Events List:
Pian-o-thon
Saturday, June 4, 9am – 9pm
Northern Hotel Lobby, $10 donation suggested
Play-what-you-can, Pay-what-you-can! Sign up for one or more 15 minute segments to play our 1879 Erard Baby Grand Piano in the Northern Hotel Lobby and help us raise funds for CASA of Larimer County and Off the Hook Arts Academy free and low-cost music education programs. What a great way to give back, either as a performer (all genres and ages) or audience member. Donations start at $10 but you can give as much as you’d like! For details visit here.
Adventures of Julian
Thursday, June 9, 4:30 – 5:30pm
Museum of Discovery, FREE
A musical storybook by Austin based pianist/composer Kathryn Mishell called The Adventures of Julian. Each very short storybook chapter (9 in total) is accompanied by a progressively harder short piano works meant for a whole piano studio to perform. Debut Theatre provides children to dramatically read the chapters. Local piano studios provide nine pianists to perform each of the piano works. Located at the Museum of Discovery, our pianists will get to use the historic piano in the Museum’s Cafe. Join us for the musical treat performed by children for children.
What Big Ears You Have! The Better to Listen to You…
A Family Concert
Monday, June 20, 4:00pm
The Downtown Artery, $5 general public, parent free with one child
This is a must see for the whole family — entertaining enough for adults and their children. Our first Family Concert of SummerFest includes an introduction to the instruments, the narrated musical tale of Bruce Adolphe’s Little Red Riding Hood, as narrated by Bruce Adolphe, the Director of Family Concerts at The Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center in NY and the work’s compser, with a musical petting zoo before concert time for kids to explore the instruments that they’ll see being played.
Interconnections: Unity & Diversity Art Show Grand Opening and Meet and Greet the Miami.
June 23, 5:30 – 7:00pm
Community Creative Center, $12
The grand opening of our Small Works Art Show — Interconnections: Unity and Diversity featuring a “What is this Chamber Music thing?” with host Peter Lloyd, principal bassist of the LA Chamber Orchestra and the returning Miami String Quartet, in a short guest live music performance. Reception of food and wine included.
STE(A)M² Workshops and Faire
June 22 – 24
Community Creative Center
Registered required. $25 per day, Faire FREE
Two afternoons of workshops with students grouped in teams building a simple machine that produces rhythmic and harmonious music! Once built, these crafted contraptions will be incorporated into the telling of a student driven story line that is musically depicted by our pianist and composer. Students learn about the math of rhythms, improvisation and storytelling by working with a professional engineers, storyteller and composer.
STEAM² 1 – Rhythmic Music Machines. Wednesday, June 22, 1 – 4pm
STEAM² 2 — Harmonious Contraptions. Thursday, June 23 1 – 4pm
STEAM² Faire: students and local inventors/presenters exhibit their crafts in a hands-on open to the public event on Friday, 2 – 4pm.
Rocky Mountain WoodTurners will additionally lead students through the process of turning a working pen on a wood lathe. This faire, open to the public and held on the Old Library lawn around the Community Creative Center, is a tangible, hands-on creative project that combines skills and exposes the kids and their families to new Arts and Science opportunity to explore.
Leave it to Ludwig!
Saturday, June 25, 4:30pm
Ridgeview Classical Charter School, $5 general public, parent free with one child
Bruce Adolphe, the Director and Founder of Family Concert Series at The Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center in NYC brings his SOLD OUT engaging and funny portrayal of Ludwig van Beethoven to Fort Collins, with the help of the Miami String Quartet and pianist Andre T. Short. In this performa
nce, children are drawn into a deeper appreciation and understanding of classical music that their parents can fully enjoy and appreciate. Bruce Adolphe, and his fellow musicians, theatrically bring alive the maestro himself to learn more about his life, historical importance, entertaining personality, and compositional techniques.
Improving your Improv
Sunday, June 26, 12:00 – 1:00pm, $8
Bruce Adolphe, Author of The Mind’s Ear (Oxford University Press, 2013), works with all ages, genres, instruments in an improv workshop.
Guitar Aerobics
Wednesday, June 29, 7pm
Everyday Joe’s, $15 for participants, $10 for audience members.
Registration required.
One of the greatest performers and teachers of guitar, Eliot Fisk, leads a guitar workshop for all styles of music (rock, folk, country, blues, and classical), all ability levels and all ages of players with the main goal of raising the Fingerboard IQ of aspiring guitar players. Like a mixed yoga class, some participants will do more extreme versions, or some simpler versions of the same exercise. Even if you’ve always been fascinated by the guitar and just want to observe, please come! Everyone is most welcome.
SummerFest Music Workshop
A Five Day Summer Music and Arts Camp
June 28 – July 2, 9:00 – 3:00pm
Ridgeview Classical Charter School. $260, scholarships available.
Registration required.
Off the Hook Arts Academy brings inspiration, intuition and imagination to kids this summer by offering a fun and educational way to learn more about themselves and the arts. The Academy provides five days of enriching musical experiences with outstanding instructors devoted to keeping you musically nourished and inspired. We offer two options: one for kids who already play violin or viola, and one for kids who want a great introduction to the arts. Daily schedules for each division are based on a diverse exposure to relevant areas of the arts that stimulate and encourage creative thought and growth. Visithere for all the details.
Music Workshop Final Recital
July 2nd, 4 – 5pm
Old Town Square, FREE
The final concert of our five day summer music camp with our String Players in an outdoor, public performance exhibiting the
repertoire that students worked on during the week including standard and fiddle music. By taking place in the outside performance space
located in Old Town Square, students are able to engage an indirect audience of over 200 people visiting downtown Fort Collins and diners
in outdoor patio restaurants surrounding the square.