New England Traveling Teen Camp I – June 19-July 8, 2017 – $1375
Date: June 19-July 8, 2017
Venue:
Stump Sprouts Retreat Center
Leaders:
Larry Gordon,
Bongani Magatyana,
Samira Merdzanic,
Sinead O’Mahoney
Price: $1375
This camp features an international trio of leaders: Bongani Magatyana, from Capetown South Africa and Samira Merdzanic from Bosnia, along with Village Harmony founder Larry Gordon, and VH alumna and intern Sinead O’Mahoney.
Bongani has an especially deep knowledge of South African traditional music and culture and he is a truly great teacher with an particularly clear way of imparting the sometimes elusive rhythms of traditional South African singing and dancing. He is also a wonderful composer of new songs in the folk style. His infectious enthusiasm can coax a big South African sound out of even the most timid singers.
Larry will lead American shape-note songs, renaissance and contemporary compositions and likely some Corsican songs, as well as leading folk dancing every morning. Sinead will teach the group several Georgian songs.
Samira will teach a variety of songs from Bosnia: traditional lyrical sevdalinka, village songs featuring sharp dissonances, and sacred songs from different religious traditions.
This will be a wonderfully international ensemble! We are especially excited that the camp will include three teen girls from Bosnia and two teens, boy and girl from South Africa, from the high school choir that Bongani works with.
The tour itinerary will include Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Village Harmony founder and director LARRY GORDON has been making community music in Vermont since the early 1970s. He founded Village Harmony in 1989, and his patient and relaxed, yet demanding, teaching style and his collaborative approach have shaped the welcoming atmosphere of the Village Harmony community since the beginning. Though his first love was medieval and renaissance music, he is a vital figure in New England shape-note singing, and he is the music editor of the popular Northern Harmony shape-note songbook. 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. 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 ad hoc incarnations of Northern Harmony, a semi-professional tour group made up largely of veteran Village Harmony singers. Recently he has been devoting increasing time to teaching Balkan folk dancing.
SINEAD O’MAHONEY, a native of Montpelier, VT, has been avidly singing with Village Harmony and Northern Harmony for over a decade. She has traveled abroad with Village Harmony in Corsica, France, Switzerland, Germany, and has taken two separate trips to Caucasus Georgia, including an intensive Georgian language and culture course. She has also been active in Sacred Harp and other shape-note singing throughout New England. She has been praised for her sure command of rhythm and clear and efficient teaching style. Sinead earned her bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Vermont in 2016, and is currently working as an elementary music teacher in Wilmington, VT. This will be Sinead’s third year teaching at Village Harmony camp.
Situated in rural northwest Massachusetts, Stump Sprouts Retreat Center is a rustic multi-season resort—founded as a cross-country ski resort—and retreat facility. The center of activity is the hand-crafted three-level guest lodge with bedrooms and lounge on the top two floors and kitchen and dining area on the lower level. Our rehearsals take place in the center’s converted dairy barn. And additional bedrooms are just across the lane in the 200 year-old farmhouse. Stump Sprouts is located on 450 acres of woods and meadows, with splendid vistas and hiking trails. The center’s organic gardens that often provide vegetables for our kitchen. These unspoiled lands set the stage for three Village Harmony teen retreats this year.