Auditions for birdsong’s Vacation Music Camp will be conducted from 9am to 1pm, on Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st, May, Arrival Day and Corpus Christi respectively, at the band’s UWI Campus venue at the Old Works Department Building, Agostini St in St. Augustine.  If you already sing or play pan, trumpet, French horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba, flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, saxophone, percussion, drums, piano, guitar, cuatro, double or bass guitar, birdsong is the place to be this August Vacation.  Those being targeted range in age from 2018 SEA candidates 2018 secondary school graduates.  Instruction is free of charge to students.
    
From July 9, to August 16, 2018, birdsong Academy will host its 15th annual Vacation Music Camp.  The camp is one of birdsong Academy’s core programs aimed at addressing the demand for high-quality, accessible training for children and teens who are poorly served by both the formal and informal music education establishments.

The Vacation programme is a fun but intensive music camp that is conducted from 8:00 a.m – 4:00 p.m. Mondays through Fridays over the 5 week period. Activities take place at a number of venues in the St. Augustine/Tunapuna area, principally, UWI, St. Augustine Campus, the new panyard at 3 St. Vincent Street Tunapuna and the Lloyd Best Institute (Tapia House).  The camp is limited to 110 students who are drawn mainly from birdsong’s Saturday and After School programmes, but space is reserved for new students already play an instument and wish to explore a wider range of music styles and repertoire.  These are admitted admitted by audition.  Those students who do not yet have a rudimentary knowledge of music are invited to join birdsong’s After School Programme which begins in September and for which registration will take place in late August 2018.

The Vacation Camp Curriculum

The camp features an innovative curriculum designed to develop skills such as sight-reading, harmony, ear-training, musical imagination, technique and ensemble playing.  Students will also be exposed to theatre arts and music history.  One innovation this year is online marketing and promotion of creative musical work. As usual, there will be exciting field trips to exotic locations as well fun activities such as hikes and/or horseback riding.  A feature of the Vacation programme is a series of “Open Mic” concerts in which students produce and perform 'al fresco' before their peers and the community.  The programme also delivers guest lectures by notables.  Featured in the recent past have been Peter Minshall, Brother Superior, Earl Rodney and Two Cents Movement.   The camp culminates with Camp Closing Concert at Queens Hall on August 16, 2018.