Award-winning musicians and students from around the world will again converge at the First Presbyterian Church of Vero Beach for the Mike Block String Camp, which runs July 7-12, and its related Vero Beach International Music Festival, both founded by the innovative, Grammy-winning cellist Mike Block.

Multicultural camp workshops emphasize creativity, improvisation, collaboration and performance in bowed and picked string instruments, and cater to all ages and abilities, with separate classes ranging from beginners and intermediates to professional musicians.

“We’ve jumped to over 100 participants again, which is right where we like to be. And again, we’ve got a whole host of local Vero students from the schools and the Gifford Youth Orchestra,” says Block.

The public is invited to attend an all-faculty concert on Wednesday, July 9, featuring the world-class musicians collaborating cross-stylistically, and a culminating concert on Saturday, July 10, showcasing student ensembles, faculty and assistant faculty.

There are two brand-new musicians on faculty this year – Joshua Pinkham, a mandolin player, and Scottish fiddler Jenna Moynihan.

“Joshua Pinkham comes from a whole family of bluegrass musicians, but has really dove into jazz and improvisation and he is a really great singer as well. He’s pretty special,” says Block.

Pinkham lives in Tampa and is a founding member of Kittel & Co., touring frequently with Jeremy Kittel, who has been on faculty in the past.

“Jenna Moynihan comes from a Celtic background but she’s also played in a lot of contemporary bands. She was touring for a few years with a special folk group called the Milk Carton Kids. She’s currently on faculty at the Berklee College of Music,” says Block.

Kimber Ludiker, a two-time Grand National Fiddle Champion and a founding member of the Grammy-nominated, all-woman Bluegrass band Della Mae, returns after an absence of a few years.

“She really rocks pretty hard, so I’m very excited to have her back.”

Natalie Hass, a classically trained cellist currently living in Spain, is back after an absence last year.

“She comes from a Celtic background and she’s always been interested in Scandinavian styles and the Celtic adjacent styles. She’s been learning a lot of folk music from the different regions of Spain, so I definitely hope that she’s able to share some of that with the students and in the faculty concert,” says Block.

Zach Brock, an acclaimed jazz, Americana and improvisational violinist, coaches at workshops and conservatories around the world. He is a member of the “genre-bending supergroup” Snarky Puppy, which has won three Grammy Awards.

Zachary Brown, a cellist who performs classical, jazz and contemporary repertoires, is now also performing on Broadway.

“He’s been playing a lot of Broadway musicals, like ‘Hadestown’ and ‘The Last Five Years.’ He’s living in New York and doing great.”

Block’s wife Hanneke Cassel, an award-winning Scottish fiddler, and Lauren Rioux, an ‘old time’ viola/violinist, have been on the faculty since year one.

“Hanneke has had a big spring. She’s been asked to teach at all sorts of international festivals and camps. By the time she gets to Florida, she will have been to Europe to teach four times this year alone,” says Block.

Rioux, based in Maine, holds degrees in Violin Performance and Music Education from the University of Southern Maine and is sought after for her teaching expertise, leading classes and workshops around the world.

Taylor Morris, started in the early years of the camp as a student and was “just so brilliant” that he was hired and has taught at camp for about the past 10 years.

“He lives in Arizona, and he leads his own student group, a really great program called Gilbert Town Fiddlers. They put on their own concerts and tours, and they even put on their own local summer camp. He’s definitely someone who’s taken what happens in Vero, planted his own seeds and is spreading the gospel in Arizona in a similar way,” says Block.

“And then, of course, we’re really happy to have Jacob Craig on faculty yet again. He’s been such a great fit for the camp. Obviously he’s a big presence in Vero.”

A multi-talented pianist, organist and bagpiper, Craig is the music director of First Presbyterian Church and also directs numerous local choral groups.

“He’s offering singing classes, improvisation classes and ensemble coaching in such a meaningful way to our participants,” says Block, adding with a laugh that they don’t hold it against him that he doesn’t play a string instrument.

As for Block, he is based in Boston where he teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music, and the couple has a home in Vero Beach as well.

“I’ve been composing a lot and have recorded two albums that have yet to come out. So keeping the creativity and the production stuff has been active for me this year,” Block says.

Block recently performed at the Sarasota Music Festival and at a creative music retreat at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House in Pennsylvania. In August he returns to Hangzhou, China, as the director of Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop.

“But of course, Vero is where it all started. This was the first educational program that I ever created and directed. So in a way, everything that I do everywhere else is all based on what I learned to do in Florida.”

The camp also has a number of assistant faculty members, including cellist Evan Robinet, a teacher at Storm Grove Middle School and music director at Gifford Youth Orchestra. Robinet began as a student and has served as assistant faculty the past few years.

Also returning is bassist Jacob Heglund, who grew up in Vero and is now orchestra director at Gaither Conservatory of Music and Leadership in Tampa.

“And we’re really excited that Desmond [Moss] Rogers, who is the new orchestra teacher at the Indian River Charter High School, is going to be on our assistant faculty this year. When he was growing up in Vero Beach, he was a student at camp, so he’s also an alum,” says Block.

“His instrument is bass, but he’s also a brilliant singer, and he can play all the string instruments as a teacher. In one of his roles as assistant faculty, he’s going to be one of our jam instigators, our private camp internal events each night where we jam and just play music for fun until the wee hours of the night at the hotel.”

Among the international students is Portuguese violinist Joana Carvalhas, who was the camp’s Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin recipient last year.

The violin was gifted to the camp in 2019 in memory of Daniel Pearl, a journalist and violinist murdered by terrorists in Pakistan. It is awarded for one year to an exceptional advanced or professional student chosen by the faculty.

“And we have a new participant, Helen Maier, an amazing musician who specializes in the folk music of Switzerland. So as part of her scholarship exchange, she’s going to lead some electives for our participants to learn Swiss folk music,” says Block.

David Espitia, a cellist from Bogota, returns again and he will be teaching Colombian music as part of his scholarship exchange.

“We also have a student from China that I have not met yet who is traveling from China, and we again have a student originally from Afghanistan who lives in America now,” says Block.

The July 9 and July 12 concerts take place at 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church. Tickets are $25 for the faculty concert and a suggested $20 donation for the July 12 goes toward the MBSC Diversity Scholarship Fund to support campers such as Gifford Youth Orchestra students. For more information, visit Vero.Show.

Photos provided