Gallery

2008, This year the Society has organised this Guitar Camp for the 10th time through its 16 years in existence – Happy Guitar Camp 10th Anniversary! For the first time in this camp, the committee tried to have 2 artist-in-residence but unfortunately, it did not happen. Our other artist-in-residence, Uros, was not nice for going back on his word. As his other engagements in other countries did not work out, he was not willing to come to Malaysia only and demanded money which we could not afford to pay although an agreement was already in place! Nevertheless, we managed and we shall forget about him…

Anyway, we have Isabelle Heroux from Canada as our artist-in-residence and she is the first lady to be invited to our camp.

This year we had a record number of participants and, if, this remains so for the years to come…, I believe that we will be the largest and most successful camp in the world. Camp? Well, how did this camp come about? When the Society was to organise the first of these camps, I based it on the summer school I had attended – John Duarte’s Cannington Summer School, of course, with some modification. I had to think up of the programme and to name it. Naming is not an easy job as it has to represent correctly the intentions of the organisers as well as the content.

I have come across some festivals named such that is really a competition and falls far short of the name ‘festival’ A music festival is usually organised as a big event, whereby, it is usually and very strongly based on performance. On top of the number of performances, there will be shops, retailers, manufacturers etc that will be presenting their wares. Organisers will also be interested to having seminars, masterclassses, lectures, conferences during the festival. Added on, will also be a competition though not necessarily.

A summer school is called such in countries with four seasons where summer is a time for holiday and during the holiday extra activities like these occur. As the name implies, it is based on education although performances are not neglected. Our camp can’t be called a summer school for the obvious reason… we have summer throughout the year! As we intend to gather enthusiasts together … and keep them locked up!… just kidding… for the love of our instrument, fill their time up with activities for the period that has been allocated what would be better than to call our camp – a ‘CAMP’

Our camp focuses on the participants. Every activity, involves the participants making sure that every participant will go back having learnt something at the very least if not, with good experiences. The committee tries very hard to have every participant have opportunities to perform and play either in the masterclasses, workshops, students concert and our new event ‘Guitar Star’. Definitely, every participant will perform in the final most important concert of all – the participants ensemble concert on our last day. We try our best to be fair. Sometimes there may seem to be some unfairness. Trust me, there are none as I always tell my committee members to be make sure everyone gets a chance for everything we do. Sometimes, things just happen due to the fact that we have to make on the spot decisions that is necessary to make that particular event successful. This sometimes seem unfair but is unfortunate as the situation demands it. I am carrying on as it was brought to my attention that someone had complained about unfairness. Finally, as with all organisations, the executive committees decision is final.

This year, our camp had four 11 year olds and our eldest was 64. The camp through the years had mainly Singaporeans as foreigners but this year we had a 64 year old Japanese and a 60 year old British not mentioning the other 50 year olds. Are we going international? Whatever it may be, we welcome all.

Have fun with the photos…

A day in the history of the society. This camp is the 10th (Happy 10th Anniversary!) and is the 5th consecutive camp since we started again in 2004.