2008 Camps and Workshops
Winter Singing Weekend
Winter Singing Weekend
February 22-24, 2008
Led by Patty Cuyler, Larry
Gordon, Peggy Larson, Emily Miller
Tuition: $200-$240/$150 (commuter)
As of January 15, commuter applications ONLY. All over-night spaces are full.
Village Harmony’s annual mid-winter weekend workshop, with dancing and singing and instrument playing, is a sure bet to fire up a lot more than just your voice! This year again the weekend will be held at the Hulbert Center in Fairlee, Vermont—an excellent spot for a warm mid-winter gathering of old friends and new acquaintances.
The weekend will begin with supper on Friday night and close with a review session after lunch on Sunday. We’ll sing from a wide range of traditions, including South African, Georgian, Corsican, Scandinavian, Celtic, Appalachian, and American shape-note singing. There will be plenty of dancing, too—contra and Balkan and English country dancing before and after the singing sessions will keep us warm in the winter cold!
Accommodations will be double, triple or quadruple rooms. Cost for the weekend is $200 per person in the triple or quad rooms or $240 per person for a double room. The price includes six meals.
The expansive grounds of the Hulbert Center will offer opportunities for cross-country skiing, as well as ice-skating on Lake Morey. Full tuition is due with your application form.
Winter Weekend Faculty
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 ad-hoc incarnations of Northern Harmony, a semi-professional
tour group made up largely of veteran Village Harmony singers. Larry
will teach traditional and contemporary shape-note music and lead dancing
at the Winter Workshop.
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 the women’s Corsican trio Eccuci, and began the Montpelier World Music Chorus and Boston Harmony in 2004. Patty has edited a number of song books of South African, Georgian and Bulgarian folk music and has a large library of her own transcriptions. Patty will be teaching South African dance-songs and Georgian and Corsican a cappella singing at the Winter Workshop.
EMILY MILLER has lived in Kansas, Toronto, Hong Kong, Chicago,
New York, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and (currently), Nashville, Tennessee,
and her background in music is as diverse as the places she can call ‘home’. Emily’s
teaching repertoire includes traditional Appalachian, early country, down-home
gospel, blues, cowboy and (Caucasus) Georgian music. A marvelous fiddle
player, she loves to make a rollicking ensemble out of whatever instruments
show up at workshops, and she is sure to lead some great sessions during
the weekend. Emily continues to juggle her artistic career with her
graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, and regularly tours with the Sweetback
Sisters, a honky-tonk band that last spring placed a close second
in Garrison Keiller’s talent show for bands in their 20s last spring.
You can read more at www.thesweetbacksisters.com.
PEGGY LARSON will be joining Village Harmony for the first
time at this Winter Weekend. Currently living in St. Paul, Minnesota,
Peggy is a jazz singer, voice teacher and choral conductor specializing in
both avante garde jazz singing and world music traditions. Peggy is
currently the leader of Earthtones, a women’s world music
ensemble in St. Paul. As a long-time resident of the Netherlands, Peggy
founded and led the improvisational jazz choir Tamam and the women’s
group Peggy’s
Angels, popular for their performances of jazz and world music. Peggy
has traveled widely to study ethnic music, and at the Winter Workshop will
be teaching an eclectic mix of fascinating traditions, including yoik yodeling
techniques from the Sami people of Scandinavia and ‘mouth music’ and sean-nos ballad
singing from Ireland.