Camps and Workshops
2010 International Sessions
Corsica Camp
June 19-July 3, 2010 (14 days)
Led by Jean-Etienne Langianni, Patty Cuyler,
Larry Gordon
This camp session is intended for experienced older high school and college students and adults who are confident enough to tackle the challenges of learning Corsican music--with its elaborate ornamentation and precise intonation--by ear, and to sing one on a part. It is above all a study tour, with emphasis placed on working with local singers and learning about the culture of the island. We are privileged to once again be able to work with Jean-Etienne Langianni--member of the folk ensemble Tavagna and the Paris-based early music group Organum. Patty and Larry will also teach songs from Georgian, South African and American genres for our concert program. Participants will fly or take a ferry to Bastia on Cap Corse and then drive to the village of Canari on the west coast of the cape, with its old confrerie and ancient paths winding up the mountainside. We’ll stay in an 18th-century convent and rehearse in its church. During our second week we will visit villages to meet up with traditional singers, perhaps attend a festival where we might just listen (or where we might be invited to sing), and give a number of concerts of our own in some of Corsica's most beautiful village churches.
In residence at I Fioretti, Canari, Cap Corse, Corsica, France
Tuition: $1400
I Fioretti
Canari, Corsica, France
I Fioretti is an 18th-c. convent converted a half-dozen years ago into a luxurious hostel, owned and run by the village of Canari on the west coast of Cap Corse. Six en suite double rooms and three apartments with kitchen facilities--the entire complex--will be taken over by Village Harmony for our two weeks in Corsica. Attached to the gite is a beautiful old church with wonderful acoustics where our rehearsing will take place. Canari is an intriguing little Corsican village with a picturesque clock tower, old confrerie, and ancient paths winding up the terraced mountainside. www.pagesperso-orange.fr/ifioretti
Leaders
JEAN-ETIENNE LANGIANNI is a well-known singer, composer and teacher across Europe, is at home as much with contemporary popular music and all periods of European classical chant as he is with the traditional folk and sacred polyphony of his native Corsica. He leads workshops of Corsican singing both in Corsica and throughout western Europe. A member of Tavagna (the Corsican folk music group) and Organum (the ancient music ensemble led by Marcel Peres), he is a talented composer whose works reveal a deep understanding of Corsican folk and sacred music. This will be Jean-Etienne’s fourth time working with Village Harmony/Northern Harmony in Corsica.
PATTY CUYLER of Marshfield, Vermont, is an energetic, dynamic workshop leader and director with special expertise in teaching Corsican, Georgian and South African singing and dance music. Her passion for honest, direct music coaxes fierce, forthright singing out of even the most timid singers. An instrumentalist from an early age, Patty is a brass player and self-taught accordion player. Since 1995 she has co-directed Village Harmony and Northern Harmony with Larry; in 2002 she founded a women’s Corsican trio and began the Montpelier World Music Chorus and Boston Harmony in 2004. Patty has edited and published two volumes of The Folk Rhythm South African songbook series, as well as three books of Georgian folk and sacred songs. She has also compiled a large collection of her own arrangements of old gospel-quartet music.
LARRY GORDON has been making community music in Vermont since the early 1970s. He founded Village Harmony in 1988. Though his first love was medieval and renaissance music, he is a vital figure in New England shape-note singing. Larry is an inspired organizer with an unerring eye for good repertoire and a unique knack of pulling together interesting combinations of singers and letting them shine. His patient and relaxed, yet demanding, teaching style and collaborative approach have shaped the welcoming atmosphere of the Village Harmony community since the beginning. Larry has led Onion River Chorus in Montpelier since the late 1970s, and is well known across the US and internationally for leading stunning periodic adhoc incarnations of Northern Harmony, a semi-professional tour group made up largely of veteran Village Harmony singers.