CMW Summer CampViolas play that C! Say what?! The much-awaited camp week arrived July 25 at 8 am at the CMW office. Parents and children scurried around the space, looking for camp leaders and leaving their children and their instruments. This is how every morning began; yet some things did change as the week progressed. Fiddle tunes, music labs, mini lessons, orchestra, chamber music and jam lab tunes were planted in each student and counselor’s brain, germinated, and then bloomed later on that week. Experiences such as a bus ride, or a boat ride (on a lobster boat, that is), lunch time, going on a mini hike adventure and petting farm animals were all events that brought children, teenagers, and adults from different ages together. By the end of camp, we all knew each other’s name, what class sessions each person was in, and had a whole list of songs that put together a performance on Friday. As part of the Nelson String Quartet, Luis, Kirby, Joshua and I were given the opportunity to open up the Friday afternoon performance in the chapel with a piece by Paganini. This made me think about my first years as a student at CMW, when the Providence String Quartet opened up every Performance Party with a piece. I always dreamed of maybe, just maybe, being able to do something similar. This camp showed me that maybe’s were just not part of dreams when you put your mind to making something happen. It did happen and I am so grateful that we were given such an opportunity. Each class performed a piece, or sang. As each performance passed, my amazement just kept growing. In five days, we all came together, learned together, laughed together, and even cried together at the very end. Togetherness. A term that comes up in quartet rehearsals, in music, in life and most importantly, in Community Music Works and what they offer to a community of youth, ready to dive into the world of music. -Sidney Argueta, CMW ’09 (Brown University ’13) |
