Seward Arts Council presents a one week long music camp for youth ages 7 to 15 at various venues in downtown Seward starting July 20th and running through July 24th. The camp will feature musicians who will teach bluegrass music with guitar, ukulele, fiddle, mandolin, banjo and bass.
Makena DesErmia is a Seward high school graduate who inspired the reenvisioning of Seward Music Camp after her experience in music camp that used to be offered: the Bluegrass Camp. To provide some context and help spread the inspiration, DesErmia provided comments by email to KBBI. DesErmia graduated from Seward High School this spring. When she was younger she attended a camp in Seward called Bluegrass Camp for Kids that inspired her to learn how to play the violin and find her own teacher. She has now been taking lessons and playing violin for over 10 years. Because the “Bluegrass Camp for Kids” no longer exists, DesErmia was inspired to create the Seward Music Camp to offer an alternative. She wrote: “In our camp, the students will be exposed to several different instruments and music styles, in the hopes that they will find one that they really enjoy and pursue on their own after camp. I would like for this camp to run for many summers, so we can reach as many children as possible in our community.”
She explained more in a conversation with KBBI:“…the most important thing for me was I've been really passionate about music because of this bluegrass camp, and something that we've often been lacking in Seward is music education for kids in schools. So first, I started by bringing on my own private clients and started teaching lessons, and I fell in love with teaching along with learning violin. And so the next step was trying to make it more accessible to students in our schools and in our towns. So we brought back our music camp and have had a really good experience,” DesErmia said.
Jenn DesErmia, Makena’s mother, added these comments about the capacity of the upcoming camp:
“The camp is full. We've had great feedback, and we increased the enrollment from last year to this year by 10 spots, and we've exceeded that. So it's very popular…Really, it's sort of the magic of bringing together the group of instructors, and they get with their students, and they just see where their interests are, and they run with it. And so it's a lot of artistic freedom for the instructors as well,” Jenn DesErmia said.
In addition to the music camp, Seward offered two art camps in June and theater camp with local theater technician Megan Miller. Tara Swanson, representing the Seward Arts Council, included these comments about expanding the program in the future:
“Our waitlist for these camps are kind of, I guess, kind of surprising for me because I'm just like, okay, where are these kids coming from, and where are they staying when they're here? But we're seeing that there is an opportunity and capacity to grow more, and we're always open for new ideas and what that collaboration might look like,” Swanson said.
Swanson also explained what general arts education looks like for public education in Seward:
There is currently no music and art funding for our elementary school. There is part-time music instruction at the middle school and high school level and a Chugachmiut funded cultural arts position through the high school and one additional art class through the high school. “We used to have music teachers. We had art teachers, but right now the Arts Council is the only entity providing arts instruction and music instruction at the elementary school level, and we do that through our Seward Artists in Schools program,” Swanson said.
The instructors at this year’s camp are: Caroline Pond from Georgia, Mary Schallert, Iris Montesano, Beverly Grogan and Rion Schmidt from Anchorage and Joel Williams, Lola Swanson, Jenn Haugh and Makena DesErmia from Seward.
There will be a final performance following the music camp on July 24th at Resurrection Lutheran Church from 1:30 to 3 PM.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
