Employment for summer music camps

[cmonte]

Hello, Tubenetters!
I am a freshman in college looking for a summer employment opportunity as a camp counselor. I was wondering if anybody knows how competitive it is to get a job as a camp counselor, please tell me.
Also, are there any camps (preferably in the MidWest area) that are still looking to hire camp counselors AND allow performance opportunities??
I'm looking at Blue Lake because I went there before and I know that they allow counselors to perform and work with the teaching faculty.
Thanks!

[Chadtuba]

http://www.internationalmusiccamp.com/a ... rtunities/ International Music Camp in north central North Dakota.

[ralphbsz]

Cazadero music camp (google for it) is the 400 lbs gorilla of music camps in the San Francisco bay area. It is in a pretty remote location. I know that they are right now recruiting for staff, since I saw that on their mailing list. No idea how hard it is to get a job there; a lot of the staff return year after year. I have no idea how well they pay, probably not very well. I gather that working in a music camp is a labor of love.

Performance opportunities? At Cazadero, counselors and instructors will participate in the band or orchestra. For a tuba player, that's particularly true in the camps for younger students (sometimes, the middle-school age camps have no or few tuba players, and the part has to be taken by a staffer). There is at least one student/staff concert in the middle of the week (without parents), where select players do amazing things (sometimes amazingly silly things).

Just asked my son: Last year (he was in the high school section) at Cazadero, the orchestra had two tuba players (one very advanced student, one staff), and the band had 5 tuba players (two students, three staff). The three tuba students also played duets and trios for fun, and did chamber music with random instructors. The year before (still in the middle school section), they were short on tuba players, and he had to do double duty (both band and orchestra), which left virtually no time for chamber music (or for water polo).

They have a dedicated tuba instructor; two years ago it was a graduate student in tuba performance from the LA area (super-nice guy and a great role model for the kids, plus a fine tuba player and emergency tuba repair technician). Don't know who did it last year.

[cmonte]

As much as I'd like to stay a far road trip away, I'll look into it! Thanks!

[tubalex]

Blue Lake and Interlochen are probably your best bets, and I know at least Blue Lake is still hiring. They try to get a different tuba instructor and euph instructor for each of the four sessions, so along with all that performing you could get lessons with many professionals on your instrument. I teach plenty of staff lessons every summer there, myself.