An all-day music festival the day after the Fourth of July is a first-ever event for the Mike Block String Camp, which this year is taking place in a new, more accessible location: First Presbyterian Church.
The location, just over the Barber Bridge at Royal Palm Blvd., aims to increase visibility for the Mike Block String Camp, a Vero tradition now in its fifth year. Drawing more than 100 stringed instrument players of all ages from across the U.S. and even internationally, the camp offers instruction in the art of improvisational string playing. Better known as fiddling, the genre in the broad sense includes anything but classical: Americana, jazz, rock, progressive and traditional bluegrass, Celtic, Appalachian folk, and world music.
The camp was founded by Mike Block, an esteemed and innovative cellist who plays his instrument standing up with a strap across his chest. Block trained at Juilliard and teaches at Berklee College of Music. He plays with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, most recently at Carnegie Hall, but has also performed with popular acts, including Shakira, Lenny Kravitz, Bobby McFerrin and The National.
The two-week camp has always included a free or nearly free faculty concert. Despite the world-class musicians and the rare intimacy afforded by the Vero venues, the performances have managed to escape the notice of even the most die-hard music aficionados in Vero.
Jacob Craig, music director at First Presbyterian, aims to change that. An avid music-maker himself – piano, percussion and bagpipes are his specialties – Craig, after barely a year in Vero, has strongly connected with the close-knit group of church and public school music directors in the area.
At the urging of his friend and fellow musician, Vero Beach High School’s orchestra director, Matt Stott, Craig enthusiastically agreed to hold the camp at his home base.
“It’s just a natural fit for First Prez,” he says. “I’m so excited. When Matt first mentioned it, I talked to the trustees and everybody here, and I think it was the fastest-passing idea ever to happen here.”
The church’s recently constructed education wing includes a vast stage in a space large enough for 350 chairs or 450 people standing; the 15 classrooms will serve as music rooms for the camp’s first week; the second week, following the festival, is smaller and more advanced, involving 30 professionals or pre-professionals and focusing more on performance.
Last year, the camp’s faculty concert ran nearly five hours and was held in the Vero Beach High School’s Performing Arts Center. This year, rather than rein in the musicians, the faculty performance has been extended to an all-day festival, beginning at 10 a.m. with performances for children. Food trucks in the parking lot will offer barbeque and ice cream all day.
After the kids’ session, students of the camp will perform at mid-day, and the main stage performances start at 4 p.m. Around 10 p.m., a barn dance will feature award-winning Scottish fiddler and Block’s new bride, Hanneke Cassel, as caller.
“We’re going to get rid of all the chairs and Hanneke’s going to call a couple of line dances and we’ll have an incredible band,” says Block, stretching out the word “incredible.”
He isn’t kidding. The band will include Joe Craven and Rushad Eggleston, leaders of the interactive morning event for children and families. Craven has played with the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, banjo player Alison Brown and French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli. He is a string player, but he is also known for his wild percussion playing, grabbing anything near him and turning it into an instrument. He is a fine educator as well, running his own music camp for kids in northern California.
Eggleston is even more fantastic, in the literal sense. The court jester of the group, last year he was the finale of the marathon concert. With fellow faculty watching eagerly from the wings, he took the stage in an elfin get-up, heaving his cello around him as he romped through improvisational, philosophical and often nonsensical songs.
Several other members make more conventionally beautiful music, including Cassel, who was the U.S. National Scottish Fiddling Champion at one point in her career. Joe Walsh is a bluegrass mandolinist. Brittany Haas and Natalie Haas are sisters who play fiddle and cello respectively. Brittany often plays with Lauren Rioux, an Appalachian fiddler.
For the first time, the camp features folk singer Lily Henley, a musician who took up singing Israeli and Arabic music after an inspirational trip abroad. She and singer/songwriter Kai Welch teach voice at the camp, a fundamental skill for fiddlers, Block says.
In prior years the camp was held at Storm Grove Middle School, the Freshman Learning Center with its faculty concerts performed at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. The out-of-town campers – about half the 100 in attendance – as well as the faculty stay at the Aquarius motel on the south island. Poolside jam sessions are a nightly ritual and easily enjoyed by passers-by, for anyone who can’t get enough at the festival.
Block himself says this is a new experience. “I’ve run festivals in Brooklyn,” says Block. “But nothing quite like this.”
The Vero Beach International Music Festival begins at 10 a.m. July 5 at First Presbyterian Church in Vero Beach. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to www.VeroBeachInternationalMusicFestival.com. Tickets are also available at the Cultural Council office on 14th Ave. downtown, as well as at the door the day of the festival. An adult day pass is $15; children’s passes are $5.
