PORT TOWNSEND — The finale of the YEA Music! Summer Camp arrives with a free concert on the grass at Fort Worden State Park, 200 Battery Way, this Friday at 11 a.m.
YEA — Youth Education in Arts — has offered three weeklong camps for students in fifth through 12th grades, with a faculty team made up of professional musicians and educators.
A total of 200 students took part this summer, said outreach volunteer Jan Boutilier.
On Friday, 65 of those students and their mentors will gather in the field behind the Fort Worden Commons cafeteria to play the music they’ve learned together.
“Classical, fiddle, jazz and rock,” instructor Daniel Ferland said, will all be on the program.
During this week’s camp, six student ensembles formed to study with 16 music teachers from across the state, including Pat Yearian, Gwen Franz, Kristin Smith, Mike McLeron, Bobbi Nikles and Emma Eliason.
Donor-supported
All three of this summer’s YEA Music! camps were offered on a pay-what-you-can basis. This is thanks to support from donors — individuals who put cash in the jar at the end-of-the-week concerts earlier this summer and organizations including Centrum, the Port Townsend Kiwanis Club and Elks Lodge and the Port Townsend High School Music Boosters.
YEA Music! also received a Spark Joy grant from the Jefferson Community Foundation’s Better Living through Giving circle.
To continue the camps and, Ferland hopes, build a youth jazz ensemble, a youth symphony and eventually a youth choir, more support is needed.
Information about how to contribute money, musical instruments and volunteer time can be found at YEAmusic.org.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladaily news.com.
