It was at the beautiful Lakefield College School just outside Peterborough.
This year, I focussed on piano so each morning, I would go to workshops for piano where I learnt how to vary bass lines and chords when accompanying fiddle.
Each afternoon they had electives where you could choose to learn fiddle, guitar, piano, accordion, bagpipes, banjo, step dancing, composition, improvisation, arranging, computer lab or even recording!
It's really difficult to choose what to do in the electives.
I chose:
Beginner Step Dancing with Jacqueline Enright
Beginner Accordion with Timi Turmel
Improvising on Fiddle with Shane Cook
Intro to Bagpipes with Liam McGlashon
Composing with Erin Leahy
And Mac Lab with Gary Atkins.
(Sorry, I don't have a pic from this elective.)
Each evening they had lots of fun stuff planned for us.... You can choose to do as many or as little of the activities as you like.
Monday Evening, the Instructors put on a performance.
I put together a little montage of clips from their performance.
They were awesome!
So much talent in one room and to think they are the ones who would be teaching us for the week!
On Tuesday, we had a Dance.
It was so much fun and my legs were sore the following day. :-)
On Wednesday afternoon, we had a special Slow Fast Jam. In between some of the songs that we were all playing together, we got to see some of the campers perform.
I didn't do the evening activity on the Wednesday though.... We decided to stay in and rest for the busy Thursday ahead.
On the Thursday, we recorded the Camp Chorus.
For the Camp Chorus, I played in the piano section this year. (Last year, I did the fiddle.)
Each section learns their own part separately, and the first time we hear the full thing is when we get together to record it.
It is really exciting!
After the camp edits it and send it out this year, I will make a post about it here on my blog.
On the Thursday afternoon, we had our group challenge performance.
For the Group Challenge, we get together with other campers who we don't normally see or work with throughout the year and work together on something to perform for everyone.
This year, I worked with Olivia Werden and Gail Poulsen. Olivia wrote a beautiful song called Leia's Lullaby and we arranged and performed it for the group challenge.
We also performed it in the evening at the Grand Jam.
The Grand Jam is the final performance at the camp... It is a lot of fun but it also means that the camp is over. We all get to share the stage with the Instructors and play the tunes that we've learnt throughout the week.
Thank you so much to the Leahys for having such a wonderful camp. It is so nice to be around a family which really seems to like each other and take care of each other.
And of course, a special thanks to Frank Callaghan for opening doors once again for us!
And thanks to Mom for being my chaperone and taking such good videos throughout the camp!
~~
Update:
This blog post has been edited to include a link to a video of the performance of "Leia's Lullaby".
