Camps and Workshops
2010 Midyear Weekend Workshops
South African (and more) Weekend at Menucha
June 4-6, 2010
Menucha Retreat & Conference Center, Corbett, Oregon
Tuition: $225 per person in 4-person shared bunk rooms or $300 per person for a double room. Commuters, $155. The weekend begins with supper at 6 pm on Friday (arrive anytime after 4 pm) and ends with a review of the songs learned on Sunday, finishing at 3 pm. ONLINE REGISTRATION ONLY.
A not-to-be-missed Pacific Northwest weekend with Matlakala Bopape of Polokwane, South Africa and Village Harmony co-director Patty Cuyler. Emphasis will be on learning a wonderful and varied selection of South African dance-songs for participants to take back to their own ensembles, but we will also sing from other great world music folk traditions, including American, Caucasus Georgian and Corsican.
If you've sampled South African choral singing before, you'll know how much fun it is. If you're new to the genre, you couldn't ask for a better introduction. This will be an invaluable weekend for anyone wanting to really connect with today's rich and vibrant South African folk, protest and church music movements. Expect to be hooked!
Matlakala and Patty have worked closely together since first meeting at an international music festival in 1999 in Newfoundland. Together they have published two book/CD/DVD collections of South African songs for SATB choirs.
Accommodations for the weekend will primarily be in rooms for up to six, with a limited number of double rooms available. Commuters are most welcome to attend as well. A 100-acre ecumenical sanctuary in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, Menucha Center is high above the Columbia River with walking trails, old-growth trees and perennial springs. The workshop will take place in Wright Hall, with it’s Great Hall. For more information about Menucha, go to: www.menucha.org.
Faculty
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.
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. With Matlakala, 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.