Camps and workshops

2011 Midyear Weekend Workshops

EarthSpirit UK Weekend Workshop

november 11-13, 2011

At EarthSpirit Centre, near Glastonbury, Somerset, England
Led by Patty Cuyler, Larry Gordon, Mollie Stone

Resident tuition £170-£210, based on accommodation choice. Camping (with all meals) available at £140/Commuters £125

Apply online to the EarthSpirit Weekend Workshop

Join Patty Cuyler & Larry Gordon (Village Harmony co-directors) and Mollie Stone (associate director of the Chicago Children's Choir) for a wonderful UK weekend of inspiring world music and dance--South African, Georgian, Corsican, Balkan & American--at beautiful EarthSpirit Centre. The workshop comes at the end of Northern Harmony's two-month long Autumn 2011 EU-UK tour. We’ll sing both as a big group and in smaller classes from the wide range of world music traditions for which Village Harmony is famed—songs from the American shape-note and gospel traditions, traditional music from the Balkans, 3-part folk songs from Corsica and the Republic of Georgia, and dance-songs from South Africa.

Accommodations at EarthSpirit range from en suite double rooms to shared rooms, caravans, and camping. The medieval-feeling centre is situated in a beautiful landscape five miles from Glastonbury; its 17th-c. farm buildings have been restored and converted to use as a modern retreat centre. Choose your accommodations when registering online. For pictures and more, see the EarthSpirit website: http://www.earthspirit-centre.co.uk/

Faculty

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.

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.

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.