RIC Music Camp

Dear friends of the RIC Music Camp,

It is with regret that the Rhode Island College Music Camp will take a one-year break this year and resume in the summer of 2010.

This step is necessary for a number of reasons. Primarily, the economic recession that we’re all faced with has reduced many families’ ability to afford extra summer expenses and eliminated the scholarship funding we have received in the past from private foundations, and it has substantially increased the pressure we are under at the College to reduce expenses. The RIC Music Camp depends each year on a great deal of in-kind support from the College (technical staff, housekeeping and the like) that is not subsidized by camp tuition.

This year has been a “perfect storm” of economic hardships; yet we are confident that with a year to regroup and plan ahead for the following summer, the RIC Music Camp will make a big splash in its return in 2010. The dates have already been set, in fact: July 11-17, 2010. Our plans include a later application deadline (June 11, 2010), greater advertising, and more tech-savvy methods of disseminating information about the camp (Facebook, MySpace, etc.). We will still have wind ensemble, chorus, chamber groups, and evening recitals, just like past years.

I share with my colleagues on the camp faculty a sense of loss at not being able to make it fly this year, but this has only served to strengthen our resolve to make the camp an even greater success in 2010. I hope you will join us next year when we make our return.

Sincerely,

Dr. Robert Franzblau
Director of Bands