2009
Camps and Workshops
Village Harmony Directors
Village Harmony founder and director 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.
Co-director 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. 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.
Seasonal Faculty
PETER & MARY ALICE AMIDON are versatile musicians and gifted teachers who are dedicated to traditional song, dance and storytelling. Peter is a church choir director, and the Amidons are featured harmony singing leaders at music festivals, summer folk camps, weekend choral workshops, and adult harmony singing camps. Their choral arrangements and compositions are being sung by choruses throughout the US and the UK. The Amidons will be leading shape note music, gospel, and some great new arrangements of sacred and secular traditional songs. They are nationally recognized leaders of community dance, so bring your dancing shoes. Peter is a master caller, and Mary Alice's accordion playing will set your feet on fire. For more information, visit their website:
STEFAN AMIDON is a Village Harmony/Northern Harmony alumnus currently living in Brooklyn, NY after graduating last year as a jazz percussion major from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He is a percussionist in the Sweetback Sisters honky tonk band. Stefan is the percussionist of choice for several of America's favorite contra dance bands, including Lissa Schneckenburger and Lift Ticket. Stefan has led shape note singing classes at Oberlin and at the CDSS-sponsored summer camps Pinewoods Family Week and Ogontz Family Week. This is Stefan’s first year interning at VH.
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.
ROBERT BOUTHILLIER is a leading collector, teacher and performer of Quebecois traditional song. Since the 1970’s he has done extensive fieldwork recording songs of older traditional singers in Quebec and the Acadian regions of New Brunswick. He performs with the traditional mostly-acappella trio Serre, harmonizing versions of these traditional songs, with whom he has recorded three CDs. Robert has also worked in Brittany, France as director of Dastum, a cultural association that collects and diffuses Breton traditional song and dance. He presently is Director of Conseil Québécois du Patrimoine Vivant in Quebec. This will be Robert’s first time teaching with VH.
MARY CAY BRASS of Putney, VT Mary Cay Brass is a veteran of the early days of VH. She directs several community choirs in Vermont and Massachusetts and is the co-musical director of Hallowell Hospice Choir. Mary Cay is also a highly-sought after contra-dance keyboardist and accordion player. She spent two and a half years in the former Yugoslavia on a Fulbright Scholarship in ethnomusicology. She has published two book/CD collections of music from that region. Recently, she has led two very successful Village Harmony camps in Bosnia.
KATHY BULLOCK’s father was a Baptist minister, and she grew up singing and playing piano and organ in his church and performing with her four sisters. She is a professor of music at Berea College where, in addition to teaching music theory and ear training, she teaches courses in African- American music and directs the Black Music Ensemble, a boys’ choir that performs music from the African-American tradition and by African-American composers. This will be Kathy’s fourth year leading a Village Harmony session.
MALKHAZ ERKVANIDZE, founder of Anchiskhati Ensemble and currently director of Ensemble Sakhioba in Tbilisi, Georgia,has been at the forefront of the revival of medieval polyphonic Georgian sacred music, with many unique recordings andpublications to his credit. Born in the central mountainous region of Imereti, Malkhaz grew up singing folk music in his family and with a local master-singer named Benia Mikadze. Graduating from the Tbilisi State Conservatory in 1988, Malkhaz formed Anchiskhati with several friends to promote the forgotten tradition of three-part polyphonic church chant indigenous to the pre-Communist Eastern Orthodox Church in Georgia. His unique background growing up in a family singing tradition allowed Malkhaz the opportunity to develop an ear for indigenous Caucasus tuning systems. This is Malkhaz’s third summer working with Village Harmony.
ASA GROGARN SOL is an active choir leader, singing teacher and organizer of folk music events, who has been deeply involved with folk music for two decades, with particular interest in traditional Scandinavian and Eastern European music. She has been to Georgia on numerous occasions where she worked with Zedashe Ensemble in eastern Georgia and the Pirtskhelani family in Svaneti. She has also studied traditional singing styles in Finland, Norway, Lithuania and Bulgaria. She presently leads three choirs and performs with the vocal trio Iris, along with Susanne Lind, another co-leader of this year’s camp. Her own choral arrangements and compositions combine folk music in the old style with influences from the baroque and from Georgian polyphony. She also has 30 years experience as a journalist and presently works part time at Swedish Radio Broadcast Company.
LUKE HOFFMAN is a Village Harmony and Northern Harmony veteran. He has been studying drums and percussion for 15 years and his keen sense of world rhythmic traditions make him a dynamic leader and teacher. He is a strong bass whose vocal and teaching specialty is American gospel. One of the newest members of the VH faculty, his amicability and sometimes ridiculous sense of humor will provide a light atmosphere for all. Luke is in his final year at Oberlin College where he studies biology, plays varsity soccer and is the co-director of Oberlin's Caribbean steel drum ensemble, Oberlin Steel. This is Luke's third year teaching at VH.
SUSANNE LIND is a Swedish folk singer and fiddle player who has worked and toured with concerts and theatre music for the last 13 years. She is also one of the artistic leaders at the music camp Ethno in Sweden, for which 100 young musicians from all over the world come together and play traditional music. Susanne has lots of experiences from teaching music and dance, and organizing groups and events.
CARL LINICH has been leading Village Harmony camps since 2000. A scholar of traditional Georgian folk music since 1990, he lived in Georgia's capital city of Tbilisi for ten years and has a repertoire of hundreds of songs from Georgia's many provinces. He also founded a Georgian folk choir in Tbilisi called Okros Stumrebi, comprised entirely of foreigners from many countries. A member of the Kavkasia vocal trio and a musical celebrity in Georgia, Carl has received national honors in his adopted land for his work to preserve and promote Georgian folk song. Together with his partners in Kavkasia, Carl has recorded three CDs.
SUCHET MALHOTRA is an Indian percussionist trained in Hindustani vocal music and tabla. He has evolved as a percussionist who plays hand drums from the world's major drum cultures, in particular from India, Africa, South America. Sacher also uses instruments from folklore--the fujara from Slovakia, the Australian didgeridoo--in cross-over music. Suchet has worked with Susanne Lind in Sweden’s Ethno camps and plans to teach tabla this summer.
VAL MINDEL, a veteran teacher at Village Harmony, is a versatile teacher, singer and instrumentalist. She focuses on teaching the mechanics of creating harmonies and arrangements as well as singing in small groups, using early American country, Appalachian, gospel and bluegrass repertory. She lives in southern Vermont and leads adult harmony workshops there and around the country, often with daughter and fellow Village Harmony leader Emily Miller. She was a member of the 1970s string band, Any Old Time, has performed and taught in Hong Kong, Canada, Scotland and England, and was a long-time instructor at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music.
NATHAN MORRISON hails from the mountains of Vermont where he grew up exploring the woods and music of all kinds. His parents sang with Larry Gordon in the late 80’s, thereby influencing the styles of singing Nathan would come to love in high school while singing with Village Harmony. He managed to escape high school a year early to sing with Northern Harmony in Europe and across the US before heading to Hampshire College. After deciding definitely not to study music, he designed a major combining jazz and religious experiences. Always ready to play with new varieties of music, Nathan is thrilled to be singing with Village Harmony once again, with the added bonus of traveling with VH in the summer as an intern with the July teen camp.
SUZANNAH PARK began participating in Village Harmony Camp when she was twelve, but has been singing virtually from the moment she could speak. She comes from a family of three generations of professional traditional musicians and singers, and has performed and taught for the past 13 years. Her intuitive teaching style, born of a lifetime of familiarity with American folk music, makes her an extremely valuable teacher. She recently moved back to North Carolina, the place of her birth, where she is making music, gardening and clogging. This is Suzannah's eighth year teaching at Village Harmony. www.suzannahpark.com.
DESSISLAVA STEFANOVA from the UK, moved to England in 2000 straight from the worldfamous Philip Koutev National Folk Music and Dance Ensemble in Sofia, Bulgaria. She was immediately in demand to teach the unique Bulgarian singing style so decided to stay and set up singing workshops, and ended up establishing the London Bulgarian Choir. While at Sofia University, Dessi successfully auditioned for the Philip Koutev Ensemble and continued her career as a professional singer. Since her arrival in London, Dessi has recorded a CD, "Wild Wind A Course in Authentic Bulgarian Singing" and worked on two soundtracks for Warner Brothers. She currently sings with the vocal trio The Dessibelles and bringing together renowned Balkan musicians in the Orpheya project. This will be Dessi’s fourth summer teaching with VH.
MOLLIE STONE grew up singing in the Chicago Children's Choir, where she experienced how powerfully music can bridge gaps between people of different racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Mollie now serves as the associate conductor of the Chicago Children's Choir, having received her bachelor's degree from Amherst College in 2001 and her
master's degree in conducting from Westminster Choir College in 2004. In 2001, she received a grant from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to create a DVD,"Vela, Vela," to help educators learn and teach black South African choral music in the oral tradition. In 2006, Mollie received another grant enabling her to work with a number of South African choirs and musicians to study how they are using choral music in the struggle against HIV. Mollie leads workshops on black South African choral music across the country, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in conducting at Northwestern University.
WILL THOMAS is a long-time Village Harmonite and an award-winningcomposer. He is an alumnus of Marlboro College where he studied Music Composition and Ethnomusicology. His choral compositions draw on world music influences as well as shape-note and medieval styles. For four years, Will co-taught a world music chorus at Marlboro College. He will be interning for the August teen traveling camp.
BRANKA VIDOVIC will return for her second Village Harmony camp in Bosnia. She is a Sarajevo-based ethnomusicologist who co-leads the Music Academy's Ethno-Choir. She is an expert in traditional village-style singing of all the diverse ethnic groups of Bosnia and has led choirs and taught in folk ensembles for over 30 years.
TIJANA VIGNJEVIC studied conducting at the Music Academy in Sarajevo. She started singing in choir when she was ten years old. In 1997, she began working as a conductor with the female vocal ensemble Corona – an a cappella group that sings the traditional music of the Balkans. She also works as a high school orchestra teacher in Sarajevo. Her orchestra and choir have won awards at music competitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She worked with us at our first two Bosnia camps and co-led a teen camp in the US in 2007. Tijana will be organizing this coming summer’s trip to Bosnia, and will teach a mix of Bosnian, Croatian and Macedonian repertoire.