Michele Amy has taken a unique approach to running the Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party, an annual music camp in Moose Mountain Provincial Park.
Rather than having camps divided into different age groups and skill levels, there is one large camp for all.
The strategy appears to be working.
The Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party has grown to be a very popular music camp in southeast Saskatchewan, attracting over 100 people for a pair of five-day camps.
鈥淥ur youngest participant has been four 鈥� and our oldest has been 92,鈥� said Amy, who resides in Forget. 鈥淪o, over our 11-year history, we鈥檝e had the full gamut.
鈥淲e鈥檝e had people who have never once picked up an instrument before they arrived at camp, and people who have rented their instrument en route to camp. And then we have people who are semi-professional already, and who come just to re-experience the community, refresh their own skills and refresh their energy by being in such a supportive environment.鈥�
Families are encouraged to attend a camp together, because the organizers of the Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party believe a nurturing environment is the best way to learn.
They all get to collaborate and learn from some of Canada鈥檚 top musicians.
This year鈥檚 camp will once again be divided into two five-day sessions. The first will be Aug. 8 to 12, and the second is Aug. 15 to 19. Both are based out of the Kenosee Lake Boys and Girls Camp.
Participants receive lessons on the guitar, fiddle, piano, mandolin and banjo, and take voice and choral lessons.
They will have two to three hours of daily group lessons with an instructor, optional one-hour daily workshops with other instructors and optional 15-minute private lessons.
Nightly concerts, square and traditional dancing, campfire jam sessions and singalongs are also included.
Amy compares the Kitchen Party to creating a small village for a week, where everyone in the village is important. The older people look after younger people in a safe and supportive environment.
They will have some age-specific activities. Children under 12 participate in the daily Pig and Whistle, which features fun, performance-based preparations. Adults have a similar session. They also have a children鈥檚 campfire during the week.
鈥淲hen we have raw beginners, we do separate out raw beginner adults from the raw beginner children, and only because they have different learning styles,鈥� said Amy. 鈥淏ut other than that, everyone is completely integrated.鈥�
The inspiration for the Kitchen Party came when Amy was learning to fiddle while living in Saskatoon, and would travel to the Emma Lake Fiddle Camp, which was in northern Saskatchewan. She fell in love with the concept, and learned a lot.
When she was mentoring young musicians in southern Saskatchewan, she decided to start her own camp, since Emma Lake was a long ways away. Then the Emma Lake camp shut down.
The organizers of the Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party want to recreate a social experience that revolves around traditional music and the building of community.
鈥淲e called this the Kitchen Party because we wanted our camp to be a very inclusive experience,鈥� said Amy. 鈥淲e took a look around the world, and we realized that what happened in our own house, with our own friends, where everyone walks in and stops in the kitchen and has a beverage and food, and shares music and singing 鈥� was normal.
鈥淎nd I realized that in many cultures that exact experience was replicated, all the way from the beginning of Canada. Even before Canada was born, our First Nations people had the same kind of gathering around the fire and around the kitchen.鈥�
Her work with the Kitchen Party earned her a nomination for the Saskatchewan Arts Board's Lieutenant Governor's Arts Award in the Arts and Learning category, which she said was quite an honour. She has been teaching music for more than 30 years, but took up the fiddle later in life. It hasn鈥檛 stopped her from helping many learn to play the instrument.
鈥淔or me, teaching is all about using music and making it relevant in people鈥檚 lives,鈥� said Amy. 鈥淭raditional music is meant for dance, so we dance. It鈥檚 inclusive, so we include people with it. We take our music out into the community, and we play for nursing homes and dances and public events.鈥�
Registrations are ahead of schedule for this year鈥檚 camps. Amy expects they will be full once again this year. She hopes to have 100 people at each camp, but they can accommodate as many as 120.
鈥淲hen you have a family that wants to come to the camp, I can鈥檛 make myself to say no,鈥� she said.
Many of the participants bring family members with them. And each camp has 20 instructors. Their facility can accommodate about 220 people.
The organizers of the Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party have watched the children grow up as they return year after year, and if a family doesn鈥檛 return, there鈥檚 usually a reason for it, such as a scheduling conflict or a move to another part of the country.
鈥淚 would say 90 to 95 per cent of our participants are repeat participants,鈥� said Amy.
She noted that many of the young musicians that they have nurtured over the last 11 years are now coming back as instructors.
鈥淪eventy per cent of the instructors in the first week are actually musicians who came up through the Kitchen Party, which is so exciting to bring them back and hire them now,鈥� said Amy.
The Kitchen Party has also hired a couple of summer students this year, which is a first. They have been promoting the Kitchen Party, as well as the value of community and building relationships, when speaking to school students, nursing home residents and others in the region.
