Little voices harmonize perfectly with art lessons

Camp at church blends two forms of expression

Friday, July 18, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JOANY NAZDIN The Rev. David MacDonald offers a bit of history to the children’s choir at the Old Durham Musicand Arts Camplast weekin Nanjemoy. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

The concert was the finale of a dream which began this winter with friends Alicia Cordelle and Benn Morgan. Cordelle and Morgan were talking at a party and decided that it would be a fun thing to start a music and arts camp at Old Durham Church.

‘‘Sitting around at Benn’s party, we thought a camp would be a great idea,” Cordelle said. ‘‘From there it just grew and grew.”

The pair started planning the camp in the winter and by February they started publicizing it.

The Charles County Arts Alliance provided them with a $1,500 grant, and there were several private donors who also contributed funds.

‘‘We had one private donor who doesn’t want their name made public, who donated $1,000,” Cordelle said.

The original vision of the camp was that they would take 20 children ages 6 to 12 from Charles County and teach them about choral music and visual arts. Cordelle was worried that they would not even have that many kids because the camp is so rural.

‘‘We ended up having 53 kids, and the age range dropped to include a group of 4- to 5-year-olds,” Cordelle said. ‘‘We had a lot of interest from home-schooled children, and some families enrolled two or three kids. We got to 40 kids fast, and then I thought maybe 45 would be a good limit.”

Cordell eventually made space for everyone who had an interest in attending, offering scholarships to children who would have been unable to attend due to financial concerns.

‘‘I wanted to have more children from the Nanjemoy area attend,” Cordelle said. ‘‘I was offering scholarships, but I didn’t take into account that transportation would be a problem in the area. Next year, we will have better planning.”

Cordell, who is the vocal artist in residence at Old Durham Church, has traveled all over the world. She holds a degree from Boston University, and has earned artist diplomas from institutions in Vienna, Austria, Tel Aviv, Israel, and Italy. Cordelle has performed opera in North America, Italy, Germany, Austria and Israel. She also teaches voice and opera to private students.

Cordelle also is a co-founder of the Schubert Singers, a children’s choir in La Plata.

Because kids can’t sing all day, Cordell arranged to have several visual artists from the community come to lead classes on beading, photo composition, painting and pottery making.

Irene Posey taught children about American Indian legends while her father, Rick Posey, helped the children create clay projects. On the day of the concert, Irene was wearing a feather in her hair, Indian-style.

‘‘It really is the feather from a black vulture,” Irene said.

‘‘The eagle feathers are illegal to own. It was great to teach the children, even when they did get a little wiggly while I was talking to them.”

The children also received ‘‘History Bytes” from the Rev. David MacDonald.

MacDonald shared historical tidbits with the children about the Old Durham Church, which has been in continuous operation since 1661.

Karen Beach of Pomfret sent her two children, Kaylin, 12, and Marissa, 10, to the camp.

‘‘They enjoyed themselves tremendously,” Beach said. ‘‘They couldn’t stop talking about it when they got home.”

Deanna Wheeler , a teacher from J.C. Parks Elementary School, sent her two daughters, Zoe Ziebell, 9, and Calla Ziebell, 8, to camp. ‘‘I wanted to expose the children to music,” Wheeler said.

The Ziebell children already take private violin lessons, and Zoe has sung in several musicals and local church events.

Wheeler herself designed and screen-printed the shirts the campers wore to the concert on Friday. The children were allowed to tie-dye and decorate the shirts themselves as a craft project.

‘‘I liked meeting new people,” Calla said, ‘‘and I liked making the clay art.”

Calla proudly showed off the pot of gold she made.

Zoe was demonstrating the new breathing technique she learned to help her sing.

‘‘You open your mouth like you are biting into an apple,” Zoe said. ‘‘Then you take a deep breath and sing.”

Zoe and Calla were able to demonstrate their violin playing to the other campers during a music appreciation class they held.

Cordelle was pleased that there was so much enthusiasm for the camp in its first year.

‘‘We had some problems, like the air-conditioner didn’t work for the first four days we were here,” Cordelle said. ‘‘We just ate a lot of watermelon and popsicles and drank a lot of water.”

Cordelle also thought that maybe there were too many things to do at the camp.

‘‘We did so many projects this year,” Cordelle said. ‘‘Maybe next time we will concentrate on a few main projects.”

Cordelle is also looking for a volunteer photographer to teach classes next year. Cordelle taught the photo classes this year herself.

‘‘It is also great to see all the different kids from different places getting along,” Cordelle said. ‘‘It is really wonderful to hear children’s voices. Kids really love to sing.”