World Fellowship Early Music Week

You are cordially invited to participate in World Fellowship Early Music Week, an intimate, personalized, non-competitive early music program where you can sha Royclass

re your joy in music-making with like-minded players and singers, and hone your musical skills and knowledge with the support and encouragement of brilliant and experienced professionals. The multi-faceted program offers you the opportunity to play in small, structured groups (averaging 4 or 5 to a class) as well as in large ensembles; in addition, sessions of Feldenkrais body work are available daily. There is ample time and opportunity to organize informal reading and playing sessions outside of the structured program. Evening activities include an historical background lecture on the theme of the year, a faculty concert, World Fellowship's traditional "Fun Night" (in which all are welcome to share their unique talents), informal student concerts, and two concluding evenings of dance for all. The campus of World Fellowship Center is situated in the heart of the White Mountains in view of Mt. Chocorua, with rustic accommodations and varied opportunities for outdoor activities to balance out the intensity of the music-making.

The members of the faculty, all distinguished and versatile early music performers, assemble and perform a program of works chosen to illustrate the theme of the week. Programmed early in the week, the Faculty Concert inspires the efforts of the participants and, for new campers, introduces the professionals with whom they will be working and playing during the coming days.

Unifying the musical and cultural activities of the week, a theme is chosen which may focus on a particular aspect of the vast early music repertory. Themes can be drawn from particular time periods, geographical regions, or other aspects of music life such as travel, stylistic change, or technical developments. A lecture is offered which underscores and illustrates the theme with the help of live or recorded musical examples, providing crucial context to delineate larger patterns of musical, literary, cultural or philosophical thought to which the music of the week belongs.
The final two evenings of the week are devoted to participatory dancing under the direction of an experienced dance caller, with live music supplied by a band of faculty musicians. No prior experience is needed; the caller walks the dancers through the steps and then unleashes the band for an exhilerating dance-through, whether of English Country Dance or simple period dancing of the Renaissance and Baroque.
Daily Feldenkrais® classes, taught by staff member Josh Schreiber Shalem, are designed to increase ease and comfort of all movement. The instructor is particularly tuned in to the physical issues that arise in playing musical instruments, singing, or performing.
At the end of the week, participants are given the opportunity to perform for their colleagues in their small workshop groups. Such informal performances provide campers with the opportunity to hear what has been happening in other classes, and to support the efforts of their fellow-musicians. There are always wonderful surprises as groups surpass expectations and rise to new heights, inspired by their faculty coaches (who often perform alongside them) and by the beauty of the music.

The 455 acre campus of World Fellowship Center includes a fifteen-acre "wilderness" pond (i.e. with no homes present), home to wildlife including nesting loons. A short drive away are trail-heads to Mount Chocorua and a slightly longer drive brings one to the Kancamagus Highway, one of the most scenic mountain drives in the country. The Center itself is known as a meeting-place for progressive social and political thinkers and writers, an incubator for significant dialogue and new modes of social thought. This is reflected in the camp library, but even more in the conversation of the caring and personable staff, many of whom are recruited from around the world.

Until Early Music Week 2013!

About the Program