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Making music in the woods
by Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio
July 14, 2003

A music camp sprouts in the woods on Madeline Island. (MPR Photo/Stephanie Hemphill)

For lots of young people, summer means time to go to camp. There are different kinds of camps - hockey camp, language camp, Girl Scout camp. An increasingly popular option for talented young instrumentalists is music camp. On Madeline Island, just off the south shore of Lake Superior, young people from around the midwest spend four weeks playing classical music.

LaPoint, Wisc. — The Madeline Island Music Camp is just a few blocks from the tiny resort town of LaPoint. At lunchtime, a few students relax on the front porch. The camp's music director, Vartan Manoogian, plays ping-pong with one of the campers.

Manoogian ends up the winner, but he suggests the student may have given him the game.

	Music and games

"They are generous to the older people here," he says with a laugh.

Manoogian says he and the students spend plenty of time having picnics, bonfires, and going swimming. But their favorite thing to do is to play music.

"The other day one student was exhausted," Manoogian recalls. "I said, 'what happened?' He said, 'Well, I've been playing eight hours.' I thought, 'My god I didn't do that myself!' But they're so involved in the music they play, they go way beyond the schedule. It's wonderful."

One camper who practices many more hours than the schedule calls for is Yousi Ma. He's a full-time student at the University of Minnesota. He started taking classes there when he was 11. He's a whiz at physics, chemistry, and math. But he also loves to play the violin. He says it's a treat to be at camp, where he's surrounded by other kids who love music.

"I get up in the morning for breakfast at 7:30, and don't go to bed until 2:00, because I just want to hold on and keep playing," Yousi says. "And you can find people who will stay up with you and play quartets late at night. It's like having two days per day. It's like you're on the island two months.

	Practice rooms

Yousi doesn't have to worry about annoying people when he plays in the middle of the night. The practice rooms are tucked into the woods. There may be a few owls listening, but that's about it.

The youngest camper is thirteen; others are as old as 22. Students who play the piano get accompaniment from another instrumentalist. The violinists, violists, and cellists are assigned to a quartet.

The students get some individual instruction. But they spend most of the time practicing a piece they'll perform at the end of the week.

	Quartet practices

Every week a different professional ensemble comes to teach, coach, and perform. This year's mentors are the Borromeo Quartet, based at the New England Conservatory in Boston, the Arianna Quartet from St. Louis, and the Pacifica Quartet, from Champaign Illinois.

Violinist Yousi Ma says the variety of approaches is inspiring, and very different from the instruction he gets during the rest of the year.

"You have one private teacher, so you end up hearing same things over and over," he says. "That's boring and not entirely helpful if you get locked into one mindset, one way of playing. But you come here, and you find out about possibilities rather than strict method."

	Lunch time

The camp lasts for a month, and every Saturday, students perform the piece they've been working on all week. A benefactor donated the clubhouse at a golf course to the music camp. It's now the concert hall. Concerts are open to the public, and they usually sell out.

The youngest of this year's campers is Justin Hou. He's only 13, but he's been playing the violin for six years.

"The performance is very important because certain things happen in performances that you can't get practicing in a room," Justin says. "Like the sound quality, and just the adrenaline, and having to play in front of all those people at once is really good experience."

	Justin Hou

Some students change a lot during the month at camp. Philip Parker just finished his second year in college. After playing cello since the fourth grade, he put it aside for a couple of years, and picked up the guitar. That got him interested in composition.

"I like to take the whole big picture of a piece of music, and break it down into chord progressions," Philip says. "And then break down the chords into each part of the chord, and then break it down further into the tonality and the voicing of each chord. It's fascinating, kind of like the biology of music."

Philip says during elementary school he planned to become a professional musician, but he says he "chickened out."

"In our society it's not a glorious or prestigious path," he says.

	Philip Parker

But now Philip says he feels he's growing into a decision to go into music professionally. He's made a friend at camp who's following the same path. His friend was planning to go into finance, but now he says he's "grown up" enough to choose music.

"So I think I'm doing the same thing - following what I want to do instead of what I feel I should do."

The students here love music, and they're very good performers. But music director Vartan Manoogian says that doesn't necessarily mean they'll all become professionals.

"I think the important thing is to give these young people something they have for themselves," he says. "If you become a doctor or lawyer or whatever, at the end of the day you can close the door, pick up your musical instrument, and just enjoy playing that music you love.

There are other music camps for young people. The Chamber Music Society of Minnesota offers a "Northern Lights Chamber Music Institute" at the YMCA's Camp du Nord near Ely in August. Students get a week of intensive instruction and practice time. Then they perform with their teachers and with local musicians in concerts at Camp du Nord, and in Ely and Bemidji.

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