Welcome
Village Harmony is the umbrella organization for a diverse range of choral, world music and harmony singing activities under the direction of Larry Gordon and Patty Cuyler.
Due to Covid-19 most of our programs in 2020 and early 2021 took place online.
This past year’s programs included the Village Harmony Cross-Countries Choir, a marathon two-day Winter Weekend Festival in late February and a number of different quarantine incarnations of our alumni touring ensemble Northern Harmony.
We also created numerous specialized workshops and courses uniting choral organizations and universities across the United States with colleagues from all over the world.
Summer 2021 Plans
The virtual programming Village Harmony began in mid-2020 has been successful beyond imagination, bringing people from radically different parts of the world together in an unexpectedly-satisfying way to create both music and new friendships.
We will continue with our innovative virtual programming this summer with weekend and week-long online singing sessions, all led by our expert teaching staff zooming in from across the globe.
We are also excited to announce that we have three in-person New England residential and traveling sessions in place for adults and for teens in July and August, pending any dramatic changes in the world situation.
We are extending the eligibility age in the in-person teen camps to 19, to allow those whose last year would have been in 2020 one more chance to attend.
These in-person camps are probably only relevant for North Americans, given the difficulty of world travel at present, and we must require that participants are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 before their program begins.
We extend our apologies to anyone who feels this policy is discriminatory, but this is how we are going to do our limited in-person camps this year. We don’t want to be liable for operating irresponsibly and open to accusations of creating group gatherings that spread covid, and we will be assembling groups of people who will be not only singing together, but living, eating and playing together 24/7 during our programs.
Summer In-Person Programs
APPLY HERE
Since camp spaces are limited this year, be sure to apply as early as possible to better your chances of getting a spot.
While we will in general be accepting singers for our in-person camps on a first-come, first-served basis, we will also prioritize creating a balance of voice parts in each program.
July 8 – 18: Ten-Day Teen Residential Camp
Led by Larry Gordon, Mary Cay Brass & Willy Clemetson. Ten days of glorious in-person singing together. In residence at Mettabee Farm in Hillsdale, NY. $800
July 29 – August 15: Teen Traveling Camp
Led by Larry Gordon, Sinead O’Mahoney & Avery Book. Rehearsal week at Stump Sprouts Retreat Center in Hawley, MA. No home-stays this year; singers will group-camp at Vermont state parks during the concert tour. $1400
August 1 – 8: Adult Residential Week
Led by Gideon Crevoshay, Heidi Wilson & Sarina Partridge. In residence at Buxton School in Williamstown, MA. $800 ($100 single supplement)
Proof of full vaccination against Covid-19 will required for all participants regardless of age.
Summer Virtual Programs
This summer’s virtual workshops will all be hosted on Village Harmony’s Thinkific online learning platform, where following each teaching session, pronunciation, demonstration performances, voice parts recordings, word sheets and scores (as appropriate) will be uploaded as resources for our participants.
Each live zoom workshop will be recorded and posted afterward, making it possible for anyone for whom it is impractical to attend a class (due to work, living in a different time zone, or because of one of life’s inevitable tribulations) to still fully participate.
Background resource files, audio tracks and recorded zoom lessons will remain available to participants through June 2022.
Tuition for the Virtual Programs
The financial impact of the pandemic era has been, to put it mildly, uneven. While our full tuitions have been set at levels needed to support our faculty, we are offering tiers of self-selected reduced price options for the virtual courses with the aim to allow anyone who wants to do so to join them. We encourage participants to choose a tuition level that they feel they can afford.
Join us for a full summer of weekend song workshops. Each of the 22 workshops in the series will be led by experts in their music genres. The workshop series will begin on Saturday June 12 and will continue every weekend (except July 3-4) until Sunday August 31.
Traditions represented will include Appalachian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Corsican, Cuban, Georgian, Gospel, Iranian, Malagasy, Nigerian, Quebecois, South African, Swedish, Ukrainian, Yiddish and singer-songwriter taught new songs in English.
These live, interactive zoom workshops will be 60 minutes long each and will take place on Saturdays at 8pm ET, and on Sundays at 1pm ET.
If you are in a time zone that does not permit you to watch live on one of these days, don’t forget that you will be able to watch the zoom lesson on our learning platform afterward.
Full tuition for the 22 x 60-minute sessions, plus access to the online learning platform resources, is $300, with a tier of self-selected fee options as low as $75.
APPLY HERE
Six-Day Virtual “International Camps”
We are also offering three 6-day long genre-specific workshops will include live, interactive Zoom sessions for direct teaching from the instructors, pre-recorded parts and performance recordings and resource files, virtual choir projects and live question/answer sessions. All giving you the chance to dig deeper into some wonderful world polyphonic traditions.
Each course will begin with one of our regular Sunday workshops. Those signed up for a specialty course will continue to meet with that instructor on the ensuing five days (Monday through Friday). The times of the different courses are listed below. Additional coaching sessions may be added at the discretion of the song leader.
You may sign up for these courses as stand-alone programs or as additions to the weekend workshop series. Like the weekend series, tuition is on a self-selected sliding basis.
June 12-18: Corsican Week, led by Frederic Vesperini and two other members of the Spartimu Ensemble. All classes will be 1:00-2:30pm EDT.
July 18-23: Persian Folk Music Week, led by Iranian singer Reza Saffari. All classes (including Sunday’s) will be 11:00am-12:30pm EDT.
August 8-12: Ukrainian Week, led by Nadia Tarnawsky & Inna Kovtun.
Full tuition for a 6-day course, with full access to the online learning platform resources, is $250, with a tier of self-selected fee options as low as $100.
APPLY HERE
YouTube videos
We have posted new videos and recordings of both Northern Harmony and Village Harmony ensembles on YouTube.
Follow these links:
VH Teen II Ensemble 2019
Northern Harmony 2017
Northern Harmony in Chicago 2019
Northern Harmony Sextet 2020
Support Village Harmony Programs
Village Harmony is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and all contributions are fully tax-deductible.