Corsica

June 18 - July 6, 2024

  • Leaders: Jean Etienne Langianni, Frederic Vesperini, Patty Cuyler, Aurelia Shrenker

  • Venue: I Fioretti in Canari village, Corsica

  • Price: $2300 / $2100 youth

Study with two different masters of Corsican polyphony in a historic 18th-century convent while exploring the magic of the island of Corsica. A sampling of Georgian, South African, & American songs will round out our concert program.

We aim to make this and our other international camps affordable for high school & college student participation by offering automatic youth discounts.

Tuition is based on double (with a few triple rooms) occupancy. A limited number of single rooms in Canari will be available for a $500 supplemental fee. (Double occupancy only for hotel rooms, unless a singer wishes to pay the difference in cost.)

Watch this short video about VH in Corsica

 

This camp is intended for experienced older high school and college students and adults who feel confident to tackle the challenges of learning Corsican traditional music—with its elaborate ornamentation and precise intonation—by ear, and confident singing one on a part in a small ensemble.

This is intended above all as a serious study-performance tour, with emphasis placed on working with our local instructor and learning about both the music and the culture of the island. We are privileged to once again work with traditional Corsican singers Jean-Etienne Langianni and Frederic Vesperini

We are also delighted to have Aurelia Shrenker join us to teach a set of songs from the Republic of Georgia. VH director Patty Cuyler will share songs from the South Africa and America to round out 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 will be based in Canari in rooms and apartments in I Fioretti, a renovated 18th-century convent turned gite, and rehearse in the beautiful old attached church. Even though we will be working hard during the early days of the program, there will be opportunities for you to take short hikes in the hills or dash down to the local coastal beaches.

Once our rehearsal period is finished, though, the real tour of Corsica begins!

After 10 days in Canari we will hit the road to workshop with other traditional singers and to give a series of concerts of our own in some of Corsica’s most beautiful village churches.

Meet our teachers

  • Jean Etienne Langianni

    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.

    Jean-Etienne leads workshops of Corsican singing both in Corsica and throughout western Europe. A former member of Tavagna (the Corsican folk music group) and current member of Organum (the ancient music ensemble led by Marcel Peres), Jean-Etienne is a talented composer whose works reveal a deep understanding of Corsican folk and sacred music.

  • Frederic Vesperini

    Frederic Vesperini of Ajaccio, Corsica is a long-time member (and currently director) of Ensemble Spartimu. Specializing in the traditional folk and sacred polyphony of Corsica, the ensemble is regularly invited to in prestigious international festivals, most recently including trips to Sardinia, Poland and to Tbilisi, Georgia.

    Over the past decade the ensemble has added brilliant performances of music from the Republic of Georgia to their repertoire. Spartimu has recorded two CDs. Frederic and Spartimu have worked with international students through Village Harmony since 2004.

  • Patty Cuyler

    Village Harmony director Patty Cuyler is a dynamic workshop leader and choral director and is internationally-renowned for her expertise in teaching Corsican, Georgian and South African music.

    Over the years Patty spear-headed the expansion of VH’s reach into the four corners of the globe, and it was primarily Patty’s vision and labor that shaped VH’s response to the pandemic year and launched our online programs.

    Patty founded the community world music choir Boston Harmony in 2005 and the Chicago World Music Chorus in 2013. She currently makes her home in Marshfield, Vermont.

  • Aurelia Shrenker

    With a foundation in classical voice, Aurelia has sung traditional music from around the world since her early teens. Originally from Massachusetts, she studied ethnomusicology at UCLA and received her B.A. from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

    Aurelia began documenting music from eastern Georgia in 2010 and received a Fulbright Award in 2011; she published the culmination of this work, the Tsutisopeli Project website, in 2015.

    As a teacher, Aurelia has worked with many ensembles in the USA and throughout Europe. She has performed as a soloist and with Northern Harmony, vocal duo Ash (Æ), and local Occitan ensembles in the hills outside of Nice, France where she has lived for much of the last decade.

Rehearsal venue

We will use as our base the rural gite I Fioretti, an 18th-century convent renovated with three multi-room apartments and eight ensuite rooms for tourist use.

It is located in the village of Canari just inland from the Mediterranean on the western Cap Corse—the 40-km long peninsula on the island’s far northeast with mountains that plunge straight down to the sea.

Rehearsals will be in the adjoining church, still used for services on Sundays. Canari is a delightful village of several hundred located in great hiking territory.

Visit our rehearsal venue’s website