Kanack School Fiddle Camp
July 9th through July 13th
Co-ordinated by at the
Morning Camp 9-12:30 $125
Afternoon Camp 1:30-5 $175
All Day $300
Registration Instructions: print and complete the registration form.
Make checks payable to Kanack School of Music and mail to:
2077 South Clinton Avenue
Rochester, NY 14620
The Kanack School Fiddle Camp is open to all ages on any instrument. Instructors will be playing fiddle, cello, guitar, banjo and piano.
The morning session is for all ages and with minimum experience equal to Perpetual Motion in Suzuki Book 1. The concentration will be on learning new tunes and working on fiddle style and technique. There will be two tune learning sessions each morning with a variety of styles and levels of difficulty. Students can choose tunes and teachers to work with for each session. Adults and advanced students will have a variety of classes offered throughout the week on ornamentation, bowing, note reading, accompanying, history of folk music, and tune writing. Younger fiddlers will have folk inspired art and dance classes. Each morning will end with a choice of instructor lead jam sessions.
The afternoon is for advanced students on any string or folk instrument and will combine improvisation with fiddling while preparing to perform in small groups. There will be classes in improvisation, arranging, and master classes with faculty. Students will be broken into small groups to practice fiddling, accompanying, and improvising together and will prepare for a performance at the end of the week.
Young beginning players are welcome at the morning camp on violin, viola, cello, guitar, and piano. Intermediate and advanced level musicians will benefit from the all day camp. Adult campers welcome! Snacks are provided.
Campers will have the opportunity to perform in the Rochester Irish Festival in September. There will be rehearsals in August for the Irish Festival fiddlers. There will be auditions during the week of camp for fiddlers interested in performing a solo at the Irish festival.
Please email Megan at meganbeller (at) yahoo (dot) com for more information.
Faculty:
Megan Beller, American and Klezmer Fiddle
Megan graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a BA in Violin Performance and Music Education in 2003. Megan plays American, Irish, and French Canadian fiddle tunes with her contra dance band Contranella. She also plays traditional Jewish fiddle with the Twelve Corners Klezmer Band. Past performances include the dance stages at NEFFA and at the Turtle Hill Folk Festival, the Rochester Thanksgiving Dance weekend and the Phylla Mae festival, as well as contra dances, square dances, and barn dances all over the north eastern United States and Canada.
Alice Kanack, Improvisation
Alice Kanack is a Rochester native with degrees in Performance and Composition from the Eastman School of Music. She is an accredited Suzuki Association of Americas teacher, with training both in the US and in Japan with Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. Alice's "Creative Ability Development" series of books and recordings are currently published by Warner Bros. and are sold internationally
Kathryn Pritt Fittipaldi, Cello
Katie has a master's degree in Classical String Performance, Irish World Music Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland and a Bachelor of Music in Cello from Ithaca College. Member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas; Suzuki cello teacher training unit at the International Music Festival in Berea, Ohio and at the Institut Suzuki in Montreal and Ithaca College. In addition to teaching cello and performing, Katie also teaches the Alexander Technique.
Elizabeth Hirshorn, Irish Fiddle
Liz Hishorn started the violin at age six and played classical violin for many years before getting into fiddle in college. She has studied Irish fiddle with Laura Risk and plays a variety of Northern styles. Liz is currently getting a PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of Rochester. She will be teaching fiddle at the Kanack School in the fall.
Lynn Rubier-Capron, Scottish Fiddle
Lynn is the 2004 Scottish Fiddle champion of the Grandfather Mountain highland games at Grandfather Mountain, N.C. Her Scottish fiddle lineage flows backward through her fiddle teacher: John Turner, 10 time winner of the national Scottish fiddle Championship, to his fiddle master J.T. Hector MacAndrew, backwards through the generations to Neil Gow himself! Lynn won her championship because of the unique qualities she brings to all of her music: Beauty, Intensity and Swing! Lynn teaches fiddle and violin at the Hochstein School of Music.
Conal O'Kane, Irish Fiddle, Guitar, and Banjo
Conal O'Kane is a fiddler, guitar and banjo player who just returned from a year studying and performing in Ireland. He plays regularly in sessions in Philadelphia, where he has studied fiddle with Brendan Callaghan and guitar with John Brennan. Other major influences are Cathal Hayden and John Carty.
Ellen Anderson, Irish Fiddle and Dance
Ellen Anderson began the violin in third grade and started studying the fiddle in high school with Brendan Callaghan in Philladelphia. Since then she has played fiddle and danced at Irish feises all over the United States. She can be found at Irish sessions in Rochester while she is in school at the University of Rochester.