Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp is a Michigan nonprofit organization located in the Manistee National Forest that provides summer fine arts camp and international exchange programs in music, art, dance, and drama.
The Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp was founded as a non-profit organization in 1966 by the Stansell family, who remain the multi-generational proprietors of the institution.
[Journal of the Senate of the State of Michigan, 1991 p.1414, Senate Resolution 253 of 1990] The camp is located on approximately 1200 acres in the
Manistee National Forest
The Manistee National Forest is a national forest located in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It has a total area of . It was established in 1938, and combined with the Huron National Forest in 1945 for administrative purposes, creating the Huro ...
in Michigan. It can host 4500
[Internationalidssmf Association for Jazz Education, Jazz Education Journal, 2001, NPN] 5th through 12th grade students across several 12-day sessions each summer. It operates FM radio stations
[Bidgoli, Hossein, The Internet Encyclopedia, Volume 2, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken NJ, 2004, P.677] locally and in
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...
that are
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
affiliates.
For Central campers, several options for fine arts are offered, including theater, band, choir, art, dance, and many others. Campers may also choose from many options for minors, such as conducting or team sports. In addition to the Central camp, there is the more relaxed Bernstein camp for younger students in grades 5th through 8th. Bernstein campers may choose between orchestra and band for their concentration.
Blue Lake also offers adult camp programs. Like the youth programs, adult campers take part in daily instruction on their instrument as well as ensemble rehearsals. Access to the camp's recreational, elective instructional, and regular concert programs is available to all ages as well. Adult musicians may either stay on Blue Lake property in campers or tents in the Niblock camp ground, or find accommodation at local hotels.
International exchange
Blue Lake hosts international exchange students in the arts as well as organizing several ensembles of American students to travel to Europe and perform each year. These ensembles include, but are not limited to,
concert band
A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion famil ...
,
jazz band
A jazz band (jazz ensemble or jazz combo) is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands vary in the quantity of its members and the style of jazz that they play but it is common to find a jazz band made up of a rhythm section and a ...
,
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
, and
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...
.
These exchanges serve to expose students to other cultures and have been cited as “outstanding representatives of the United States”. The camp has also initiated such experiments in multi-cultural cooperation as the ''Blue Lake in Bavaria''
concert band
A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion famil ...
which was formed out of a mixture of American and European junior and senior high school students to rehearse and perform together over the course of a month.
Leonard Falcone
Prior to the founding of Blue Lake,
Leonard Falcone
Leonard Vincent Falcone (Fal-CONE-ee) (5 April 1899 – May 2, 1985) was an Italian-American musician, conductor, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He was well known as a virtuoso on the baritone horn, having extensively performed, written, and ...
,
baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...
virtuoso and Director of Bands at
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
, had conducted many ''Youth Music at Michigan State'' summer camps in conjunction with, and support of, the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association. At the urging of Fritz Stansell, Falcone shifted his focus to aiding the program at Blue Lake and became a regular staff member/artist in residence.
[Stansell, Fritz, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, the Early Years, RDR Books, Muskegon, MI, 2007, p. 211] Falcone would be joined later by other notables of the music education and concert band world, such as composers
John Barnes Chance
John Barnes Chance (November 20, 1932 – August 16, 1972) was an American composer. Chance studied composition with Clifton Williams at the University of Texas, Austin, and is best known for his concert band works, which include ''Variations ...
and
Václav Nelhýbel
Václav Nelhýbel (September 24, 1919 – March 22, 1996) was a Czech American composer, mainly of works for student performers.
Life and career
He was born the youngest of five children in Polanka, Czechoslovakia. He received his early mu ...
.
Following Falcone's death in 1985, Blue Lake became home to the new
Leonard Falcone International Tuba and Euphonium Festival
{{otheruses, Falcone (disambiguation)
The Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival ("Falcone Festival" or simply "Falcone" for short) is an amateur tuba and euphonium festival and competition, held annually the second week in Augu ...
and competition created by his students in his memory and held at Blue Lake every year. This has become a significant annual event in the international
tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
and
euphonium
The euphonium is a medium-sized, 3 or 4-valve, often compensating, conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Ancient Greek word ''euphōnos'', meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced" ( ''eu'' means "well" ...
community and is the leading American venue for these instruments.
[Wikipedia page and associated sources, ]Leonard Falcone International Tuba and Euphonium Festival
{{otheruses, Falcone (disambiguation)
The Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival ("Falcone Festival" or simply "Falcone" for short) is an amateur tuba and euphonium festival and competition, held annually the second week in Augu ...
See also
Leonard Falcone International Tuba and Euphonium Festival
{{otheruses, Falcone (disambiguation)
The Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival ("Falcone Festival" or simply "Falcone" for short) is an amateur tuba and euphonium festival and competition, held annually the second week in Augu ...
Solid Brass: The Leonard Falcone Story by Rita Griffin Comstock
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp
Summer schools
Summer camps in Michigan
Art schools in Michigan
Music education organizations
Education in Muskegon County, Michigan
Buildings and structures in Muskegon County, Michigan
1966 establishments in Michigan
Music festivals established in 1966