We start with the Women’s Singer/Songwriter Showcase, which takes place on Thursday, June 27 at 7:30pm in the Wheeler Theater at Fort Worden.

• Purchase Tickets: General Admission $15; 18 & under free

Pharis Romero

A native of Horsefly, deep in the Cariboo interior of British Columbia, Pharis developed her style through both classical training and older tradition-bearers. Pharis began performing at an early age with her family band, The Patenaude Family. She’s a founding member of the Haints Old Time Stringband and of Victoria, B.C.’s Outlaw Social. She currently records, performs, and makes banjos with her husband Jason Romero. She and Jason’s triumphant first album, A Passing Glimpse, won the Americana Album of the Year at the 2012 Independent Music Awards. They also were given the Canadian Folk Music Award for 2012 New/Emerging Artist.

Yvette Landry

Yvette is a musician/singer who tours worldwide as a multi-instrumentalist in several bands including Bonsoir Catin, Lafayette Rhythm Devils, Balfa Toujours, Trop Canaille, Marais Bouleur and Frisson. She has performed with the Red Stick Ramblers, Pine Leaf Boys, Walter Mouton, Steve Riley, David Greely, Dirk Powell, Donna the Buffalo, Bill Kirchen, Cindy Cashdollar, Carol McComb, John Lilly, Geraldine Gay and Darrell Scott and many more. Her new CD titled, “No Man’s Land” – with guests Bill Kirchen, Cindy Cashdollar, Geno Delafose, Dirk Powell, Richard Comeaux, and Joel Savoy – has been atop the national Freeform American Roots music charts for more than 2 months.

Kristin Andreassen

Kristin has toured three continents as a member of the celebrated old time string band Uncle Earl, the “folk noir” trio Sometymes Why, and as a clogger and educator with the Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble. Her debut solo album Kiss Me Hello features the single “Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color for Your Eyes,” which won the John Lennon Song Contest Grand Prize for Children’s music, has been used in weddings, choir recitals, marching band performances, and topped the charts on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Kids’ Place Live.

Suzy Thompson

Suzy is a powerful blues singer who is unique in her ability to fiddle and vocalize at the same time. Over the past three decades, Suzy has been a leading force in many influential roots music groups, including the California Cajun Orchestra, the Blue Flame String Band, the all-woman Any Old Time String, and most recently, the Bluegrass Intentions. Currently, Suzy records and performs in a duet with her longtime musical partner, renowned flat picker Eric Thompson, with the Aux Cajunals and with the Thompson String Ticklers.

Nancy Thorwardson

Nancy is a songwriter who composes in a variety of styles ranging from lively and upbeat western and standard swing to cowboy waltzes, heartfelt jazz ballads, and sweet and honest country love songs. She takes particular delight in the sights, sounds, and scents of the west. Many of her songs are filled with coyotes and cactus and the prairie moon frequently provides the background for her ballads. Nancy’s also a great musician, specializing in swing and folk styles of rhythm guitar, and traditional and swing-style ukulele.

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In 2013, Centrum’s Young Artists Project has two workshops that are specifically focused on students in grades 9-12:

• The Advanced High School Writers Studio – July 7-14, 2013
• DANCE This! – August 4-10, 2013

The 2013 Advanced High School Writers’ Studio is designed for both AP-level writing students, and those interested in a serious exploration of the literary arts.  Students begin each day with a master class led by acclaimed author Jennine Capó Crucet for a guided practice of a variety of prose techniques and the opportunity to create new work in a supportive environment. Afternoons are filled with a choice of seminars in the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference , including poetry, short fiction, humor writing, creative nonfiction, journalism and much more. Evenings include readings and events featuring nationally acclaimed writers from the Conference.

The DANCE This! Camp at Centrum is a partnership between Seattle Theatre Group and Centrum. The week of dance provides an opportunity for high school students to study a wide range of dance styles and techniques in a supportive, yet challenging atmosphere. Students participate in African, Ballet, Choreography, Hip-Hop and Modern dance classes with professional dance instructors from the Seattle area.

At Centrum, renovated Fort buildings, including classrooms, dormitories, performance and studio spaces, serve as home. While here, students are supervised by faculty and staff, including experienced dorm counselors. During free time students are asked to be in groups of two-to three if they are exploring the grounds of Fort Worden. They are not accompanied by supervisors during their free time, but they are asked to let the Dorm staff know where they are going. Food served at Fort Worden is organic, fresh, and local.

Centrum is located at Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend. Perched on the Northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula, Fort Worden offers 450 acres of sandy beaches, wooded hills, wetlands, and a historic campus, with stunning views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic and Cascade ranges.

Summer Music Camps

In addition to our Young Artists Project camps, we offer world-renowned music camps that are incredible experiences for teens:

• Voice Works 
• Festival of American Fiddle Tunes
• Jazz Port Townsend 
• Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival

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As you will see below, there are so many interesting things to learn at the Festival, one of the biggest challenges is deciding when and how to get enough sleep! From the moment you check-in until you leave, you’ll be in community with and learn learn from acoustic blues masters. There will be playing opportunities, listening opportunities, and time for the unexpected…

On the Festival’s workshop page, we’ve posted detailed descriptions of each of the following sessions. So dig in and get ready to have a great time.

• Blues Vocal Technique with Angela Hill
• Gospel Choir with Angela Hill
• Beginning Blues Piano with Arthur Migliazza
• Mississippi Blues Guitar with Billy Flynn
• Blues Around the World with Caitlin Romtvedt and Dean Mueller
• Blues Piano with Chase Garrett and Clay Swafford
• Gig Ettiquette Master Class with Daryl Davis
• Blues Uke with Del Rey
• Banjo and the Blues with Dom Flemons
• Songster Guitar with Dom Flemons
• Into to Alternate Tunings without a Slide with Eleanor Ellis
• Beginning Blues Guitar with Eleanor Ellis
• The Guitar of Dave Van Ronk with Elijah Wald
• Blues History, Music, and Culture with Elijah Wald
• Vocal Performance with Gay Adegbalola
• Advanced Vocal Performance with Gay Adegbalola
• Beginning/Intermediate/Advanced Harmonica with Grant Dermody
• Blues Violin with Jon Parry
• Guitar and Singing with Lauren Sheehan
• Songs for Sinners with Johnnie Ward and Lauren Sheehan
• Piedmont Blues Guitar with Lightnin Wells
• Ukulele with Lightnin Wells
• Vocal Health and Warm-up with Maria Woodford
• Guitar Styles of Rev. Gary Davis with Mary Flower
• Bottleneck Slide with Orville Johnson
• All-levels Harmonica with Phil Wiggins
• Blues Mandolin with Rich DelGrosso
• Blues/Zydeco Accordion with Sunpie Barnes
• Using Blues as a Roadmap to Fretboard Comprehension with Tim Sparks
• Taking the Mystery out of Understanding Chords with Tim Sparks

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May 20, 2013
From Euskal Herria

I’ve just come from spending two hours with the accordionist Joseba Tapia who along with Arkaitz Miner (fiddle and mandolin) and Xabier Leturia (percussion) will be at Fiddle Tunes this summer. It will be their second appearance at Fiddle Tunes and Tapi says that they are even more excited this time because thy have an idea of how Fiddle Tunes works.

“You have to understand,” he tells me, “that we have nothing like Fiddle Tunes for Basque music. In the Basque Country parents bring their children to the local accordion studios when the kids are six or seven. The parents have decided the kids will play–what they will play and when they will play. And the parents expect results. The kids are taught to read and to practice getting every note right. Then there is theory and tests and later contests for kids of all ages leading up to the national trikitixa accordion contest. They study to enter and win competitions. As to whether they want to play or what they want to play, well, those are unspoken questions. It’s all about winning. And often both children and adults don’t know if they want to play.”

Tapi explains to me that at Fiddle Tunes he saw another model of music. It was one in which one learned by listening. And one often played intuitively. “One night,” he says, “I was sitting in building 204 playing. People would come in, sit down, play a while, then when they were bored or were ready to go on to something else, they got up and left and someone else sat down to play. At one point the bass player left and one of the guitar players put down her guitar and took up the bass. I asked if she was a bass player, too. She said ‘oh, no’ then began to play. And it was good. In Basque music that would never happen.”

“Now I am trying to bring Fiddle Tunes to my teaching of Basque music. I let beginning students play any instrument and switch as they please. Maybe a student starts at age ten and noodles around on three or four instruments for several years but at some point that student will be drawn to one or a few instruments, will feel at home with the instrument. I ask them to play by listening to a song and using only their ears, maybe stumbling around on the instrument to discover what’s what.”

Some of what has happened for Joseba Tapia has also happened for the fiddler Arkaitz Miner. Arkaitz studied at the Basque Conservatory of Music and when he completed his education he was at the point of giving up music. Then he discovered the traditional dance music of the trikitixlariak–the Basque accordion players. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, the fiddle, along with the alboka (a double reed instrument like a bagpipe but without the bag so that the player must circular breathe), the tixstu (a Basque three-hole fipple flute), and drums played a big part in Basque music. But then the accordion showed up and as happened in many places, its volume, durability, and ability to provide melody and some basic harmony and rhythm pushed aside some of the older music. Now Arkaitz Miner has begun playing fiddle along with the trikitixa. And what he’s doing is not only influencing music in Euskal Herria, but in the American Basque towns where the fiddle has not been heard for a hundred years and where even the trikitixa was largely replaced by the piano accordion. Now both trikitixa and fiddle are again being heard.

All for now, more at Fiddle Tunes when we will have for the second time in the Festival’s history music that represents Basque people in both the European homeland and the American diaspora.

See you at Fiddle Tunes,
David Romtvedt

Workshop faculty includes African dance and drumming artists, improvisational actors and theater artists, visual artists, poets, Hip-hop dancers, and Japanese drummers. The faculty provides a multi-cultural education in the arts. Along with the wide exposure to an unusual variety of art genres, the program encourages collaboration, creative problem solving and increased confidence among a community of learners.

Donors Holley Carlson, Kristin Manwaring, Homer Smith, and Carla Vander Ven are instrumental in keeping the program going, which happens thanks to community involvement. In the fall of 1998, a group of interested teachers, school administrators, and community members came together to apply for a grant from the Washington State Arts Commission (now ArtsWA) that offered funding for arts in the public schools. Centrum was part of that original group and has remained a partner ever since.

“I come from a liberal arts background therefore I can appreciate a well-rounded approach to education,” said Holley Carlson. “Art, in all of its various forms, can help kids develop other parts of their brains and their personalities. Art is more than a painting or drawing. To me it’s music, movement, theater, written, spoken, sung and so much more. It was easy for me to answer why I would support this program because I know that so many of the artistic elements are offered and promoted during Tales, Text and Theater. In addition, it’s a chance for all of our kids (6th graders) to have the opportunity to perhaps unlock a hidden passion and find an outlet to be creative.”

“I enjoy being part of sponsoring the Blue Heron week because it gives kids a chance that they no longer have in schools to participate in arts activities,” said Carla Vander Ven. “The range of options available at Centrum so far surpasses what might be available to them in daily life. Who gets to learn Taiko Drumming in school? But really the best part is watching kids who normally don’t interact with each other go from strangers to teammates who need to support each other in order to complete the task and present a performance. It is such a life lesson.”

Space remains in the fiction workshops of Sam Ligon (pictured) and Patricia Henley, the poetry workshops of Cate Marvin and Arthur Sze, and the nonfiction workshops of Ann Hood and Joy Passanante. These generative-writing classes are designed for beginning, emerging, and established writers, and published authors rub elbows with folks who have never put pen to paper before.

The Port Townsend Writers’ Conference is all about creating new work, having new conversations, and meeting new people in a rigorous, craft-focused environment. Learn more by browsing the links to the right, or call Program Manager Jordan Hartt directly at 360.385.3102, x131 and tailor a schedule built around your current needs as a writer.

Kristin also leads the “Concerts for Kids” performance on Friday, June 28, 2013, at 11 am at the Fort Worden Chapel building. Kids attend for free, adults pay $5 at the door.

These public performances are the culmination of the Voice Works workshop, where students of all abilities improve their skills in a full-immersion week.

Kristin has toured three continents as a member of the celebrated old time string band Uncle Earl, the “folk noir” trio Sometymes Why, and as a clogger and educator with the Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble.

Her debut solo album Kiss Me Hello features the single “Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color for Your Eyes,” which won the John Lennon Song Contest Grand Prize for Children’s music, has been used in weddings, choir recitals, marching band performances, and topped the charts on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Kids’ Place Live.

In March, middle school students participated in Centrum’s Explorations program, featuring  Taiko drumming, African dance and drumming , journalism, spoken word, graphic design, theater, hip- hop dance, as well as a visual art class focused on Surrealism.

 
Explorations photos on Flickr

In April, extreme low tides at Fort Worden’s beaches provided a first hand opportunity to learn about the marine life of the Salish Sea. Elementary school students from Washington were able to explore art and marine science at Water World, Centrum’s collaboration with the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

Water World photos on Flickr

Photos from these and the rest of Centrum’s programs are viewable at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ptcentrum/sets/.

]]> http://centrum.org/2013/05/2013-explorations-and-water-world-photos/feed/ 0 http://centrum.org/2013/05/new-at-jazz-port-townsend-the-educators-track/ http://centrum.org/2013/05/new-at-jazz-port-townsend-the-educators-track/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 16:25:58 +0000 Centrum Admin http://centrum.org/?p=5631 more]]> This summer we are excited to introduce our new Educator’s Track as part of Jazz Port Townsend, one of the nation’s premier jazz workshops.

This program will provide specific information and teaching tips to educators who want to improve their skills in teaching jazz while earning 40 in-service clock hours. Clarence Acox (pictured, top) , director of the renowned jazz program at Garfield High School in Seattle, is the lead faculty member. He’ll be joined by several of our workshop faculty who will share their expertise.

Particular emphasis will be given to teaching improvisation, plus sessions in the rhythm section, drum set, big band, jazz theory and a variety of special topics. Participants will watch and work with talented students from the Jazz Port Townsend workshop as you hone your teaching skills. Participants will also observe combo rehearsals and master classes led by our world class faculty. In addition, admission to all performances throughout the week is included in the Educator’s Track tuition.

Program Manager Gregg Miller talked recently about why he’s excited about this new initiative:

“A few years ago we started to think about how we could give more musicians the opportunity to learn from the amazing faculty we have at Jazz Port Townsend. John Clayton does a great job of assembling faculty who are outstanding performers AND educators, which is a central tenet of the workshop. With that in mind it was a natural decision to create a track specifically for educators. Many educators are doing heroic work teaching jazz despite having only cursory training in teaching it. We want to give these people solid information and skills they can use when they head back to the classroom in the fall. In this track they’ll learn from world-class jazz musicians while being immersed in the musical intensity of Jazz Port Townsend.”

For complete information, including a detailed schedule, visit our Jazz Port Townsend Educator’s Track page.