February 28, 2019

We've been busy all winter getting ready for Lake Sylvia 2019 and are excited to announce that registration is now open! See you in August for another fantastic week of flute, lakeside beauty, and friends new and old. New additions this year include an Alexander Technique Workshop for teachers presented by Tully Hall and our first annual Community Flute Day !  Check out our programs for 2019 and drop us a note if you have any questions. Scholarship applications are due by April 15th so don't delay!

June 17, 2019

Dear Campers,

We hope you are all rested up after our busy week and enjoying the summer back at home! We wanted to say again how much we enjoyed camp this year and how appreciative we are that each of you took the time to be there. Reflecting back over this week, there were so many wonderful moments of shared music and friendship and we will think back on them often throughout the year! 

Thank you also to the many of you who filled out the survey already. You have given us some very useful feedback as we think ahead to next year and we are already thinking about ways to incorporate it. If you have not filled it out yet, please take a few minutes to add your thoughts. If you already filled it out but have more comments to add, please feel free to fill it out again, skipping any questions you like.

If you didn't get a good look at some of the fantastic submissions for our photo contest this year, an album of submissions is now on our Facebook page! (While you're there, please help us out with a quick review/like) If you have any other photos from camp, we'd love to see them! Reply to this email or post on Facebook/Instagram, #LakeSylvia2018.

Finally, please save the date for:
 

Lake Sylvia Flute Institute 2019, August 14-18th! 
(Teacher Training for some books may begin on Aug. 11th.)

We hope you all have a wonderful rest of your summer. For those of you out of town, we always welcome hearing from you and hope you be able to return to MN next year. Those of you in town, we hope to see you again very soon at the many local flute and/or Suzuki events. It has been our deepest pleasure to meet and get to know you all better and share the growth of the Lake Sylvia community with you!

Till next year,

Vanamali Medina and Andrea Myers, Co-Directors

January 25, 2018

Lake Sylvia is special. Both of us knew it from our first summer out as Book One trainees. We felt welcomed, challenged, supported, and inspired then and every year since. Every June we arrive with the need to renew our energy after the school year and leave invigorated and bursting with new ideas. Nancy’s tireless efforts over the past decade to create and sustain the Lake Sylvia community are invaluable and it is an honor to be entrusted with taking Lake Sylvia the next stage of its growth. We are forever grateful to her for making our training possible and wish her the very best in her retirement with many happy days to share with her adorable grandchildren.

In one of Nancy’s final acts as director she helped us find our new home, the Koinonia Retreat Center. Located in New Haven, MN (about 90 minutes west of Minneapolis) the center has plenty of space for us to stretch including more rooms for enrichment activities for students and teacher trainees alike. This year for enrichment, in addition to art with the creative Sue Davis, we will have Dalcroze with Emma Shubin, including a full afternoon workshop for all music teachers! Private lessons are available for Alexander Technique and with our teacher trainers. Wendy Stern and Meret Bitticks will be returning to spend the week with us and this year we are excited to welcome Pandora Bryce and Laura Larson as Teacher Trainers! Pandora and Laura both bring decades of experience and passion and we know they will be a perfect addition to our Lake Sylvia family.

David Gerry’s presence, a defining part of our institute experience for so many years, will be sorely missed after his unexpected passing last December. In our daily work with our students and as we continue the Lake Sylvia, his indelible impact on our lives and teaching is always in our mind. We’ll be requesting everyone to bring a pair of crazy socks to wear in his honor during one of our themed days.

We are continuing to update the website and aim to have registration open by Feb. 1. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us with any questions. We would love to hear from you!

With flove,

Vanamali Medina and Andrea Myers

January 11, 2018

In the summer of 2009, Wendy Stern and I spent a week with twelve of my flute students and their families at Camp Chi Rho on Lake Sylvia, in Wright County, Minnesota, west of the Twin Cities.  Our Suzuki flute camp has grown year by year, and, by 2017, we were offering seven teacher-training units with multiple instructors, and we welcomed campers from all across the U.S. and Canada. Happily, in 2018 the camp is moving to the larger Koinonia Retreat Center, still on Lake Sylvia, which offers more and better living and teaching space.       

I am retiring this year after 43 years of teaching, and my husband and I are planning to move to the east coast, to be closer to our 2 daughters and our new granddaughter. I have placed the leadership of the camp in the very capable hands of Andrea Myers and Vanamali Medina, both of whom have been regulars at the camp for the past several years. I am confident they will lead the Lake Sylvia Suzuki Institute to new heights over the next decade, and I want to wish the best of luck to them, to the excellent teaching staff, and to all the wonderful campers who have made our institute such a success.

December 31, 2017

This month the Suzuki flute community came together to celebrate the life of David Gerry and mourn his passing. David was a part of Lake Sylvia from its inception and it is impossible to overstate how much the camp (and we personally) owes to him. His loss is deeply felt and our thoughts and prayers are with his family. If you would like to honor his life and work, David has set up a fund to continue student research into creating a better world through understanding the power of music at the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. In his final days, the Suzuki Association of the Americas also awarded David the Creating Learning Community award, in acknowledgement of his invaluable contributions to the Suzuki community and the music community in general. 

November 22, 2017

After nine years of welcoming students, teachers, and family, Nancy Maloney has decided to step down as Camp Director. She founded the camp in 2008 as a summer studio retreat and under her leadership it has grown into a beautiful community of flutists and recorder players from all over the Americas. The Twin Cities Suzuki flute community in particular owes much to her tireless efforts! Taking over as Co-Directors are Vanamali Medina and Andrea Myers. We are excited to continue Nancy's wonderful vision and keep the Lake Sylvia Institute growing and thriving for many years to come.