Village Harmony
Winter Camp 2011
South Africa!
January 15-February 6, 2011
Led by Matlakala Bopape, Patty Cuyler and Larry Gordon.
Apply online to the South Africa Winter Camp 2011
This will be Village Harmony’s fourth study-performance camp in South Africa since our first visit there in 2003. You will come away from the three-week adventure with an insider's understanding of the musical and cultural diversity of South Africa as we first rehearse in a game reserve and then meet up with local choirs and dance groups and enjoy the hospitality of homestay hosts during a two-week performance tour throughout the South Africa's northeastern quadrant.
The repertoire of the camp will focus on South African songs and dances, including traditional gospel, church chorus, folk and struggle songs. Four singers from Matlakala’s Polokwane Chorale will join in the camp, enriching the learning experience and cultural exchange. Patty and Larry will lead a sampling of other styles, including American shape-note and gospel, Georgian, Balkan and Corsican songs to add diversity to our concert program.
The camp proper will begin with a week spent learning our concert repertoire at the Masebe Game Preserve in Limpopo Province on Saturday afternoon January 15. We will arrange transportation there from Johannesburg that morning. We encourage singers to arrive in Johannesburg at least a day earlier to adjust to the time change.
Our touring itinerary will include concerts in Polokwane, Haenertsburg, and Tzaneen in Limpopo Province; Middleburg and Nelspruit in Mpumalanga; Pretoria and Soweto in Gauteng; and Pietermaritsburg and Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. The camp's final concert will be in Durban on Saturday, January 5. Participants may then choose to fly home from Durban or travel back to Johannesburg with the camp vans and fly home from there. We will investigate various flight options and make recommendations but participants will be responsible for making their own flight bookings.
Space in the camp is limited to 30. Application is by online registration only. All applications logged by August 1, 2010 will be given equal consideration in the first round of admissions for this camp, with the caveat that we will be looking for a balance of men's and women's voices in the group. After August 1st, singers will be admitted on a rolling basis as space allows.
Tuition includes instruction, most food, lodging and on-ground transportation during the camp period. Expect some meals out. Participants are responsible for their own transportation to and from South Africa.
$1950
Faculty
MATLAKALA BOPAPE, of Polokwane, South Africa, is the director of Polokwane Choral Society—a community-based group whose aim is nurturing musical talent in African society. As a director, Matlakala is committed to drawing out musical excellence from her singers, as well as exposing them to musical cultures of the world. Her limitless patience, careful attention to vocal technique, and rich repertoire of folk and contemporary South African choral music make her a formidable teacher. This will be Matlakala’s ninth year teaching with Village Harmony, after a fortuitous initial meeting with Larry and Patty at Festival 500 in St. John, Newfoundland in 1999.
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. With Matlakala, 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.