Retreat To Draw Musical Artists To Area
Curtis
By Paul Gingras

"Songwriting is an art. Artists are always looking for inspiration, and many find it in a natural setting," said singer and songwriter Stephen Grant Wood of the Hummingbirds, one of five musicians to teach a song-making retreat this summer in Curtis. The event draws on a world-wide music education tradition in which writers and musicians leave their familiar venues to learn from accomplished peers in fresh environments.

The retreat will be held from June 19 through June 22.

Michigan artists Rachel Lynn, Stephen Wood, Jill Jack, John Latini, and Billy Brandt will run the retreat at Chamberlin's Ole Forest Inn. They have collective experience in producing more than 30 albums of original material.

Entitled "Above the Bridge Songwriters Weekend," the retreat is presented by the nonprofit Curtis Community Arts Council and it is supported by John D. Lamb of Lamb's Retreat for Songwriters, a lower Michigan retreat with national recognition.

Kelly Chamberlin helped organize the event to promote music, creativity, and culture in the area and reports a good response. Singers and songwriters have signed up from as far away as Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, and the arts council has put the word out in Wisconsin, also.

The plan is to create an annual music event that will grow, she said.

"It promotes the area and brings new people to the U.P, people who may not have come here before," she said.

Helping develop the U.P. music scene, the Songwriters Weekend fits in with the events like the Hiawatha Music Festival and Art on the Lake, also in Curtis. It differs

in that it is geared both to draw attention to the area by featuring well-known singers, as well as to train new singers and songwriters, she said.

Mr. Wood and Rachel Lynn, also of the Hummingbirds, proposed the event following a show in Curtis last summer.

The musicians will offer workshops on singing, songwriting, the music business, and provide openmic opportunities for their students, before hosting a grand finale concert in which the staff will play for the public.

Artists get better as they learn new techniques, develop new songs, and try them out, particularly in the company of their peers, and this is the value of retreats, Mr. Wood said. Performing at a new location helps artists grade themselves. Workshops and concerts clarify what they need to work on.

On stage in Curtis, singers and songwriters will have a perfect opportunity to try out their material in the company of songwriters as well as the spontaneous crowd that will appear at the inn, Mr. Wood said.

"I am always excited to play a new song for the first time," he said, even after playing innumerable shows.

Being a poet or a songwriter is often a solitary endeavor in which family and friends may not understand what you are doing or why you are doing it, Mr. Lamb told The St. Ignace News. Reflecting on 13 years of experience running a songwriting retreat, Mr. Lamb considers them opportunities for songwriters to be part of a community where they feel justified practicing their craft. They are places where people actually listen objectively, rather than places to be judged.

"A few days at a retreat can be better than an entire semester of music classes," he said.

There was a time when local musicians thought they had to go hubs like Nashville or Los Angeles to be a singers and songwriters, and when Mr. Lamb began his retreat, the music scene in Michigan seemed small. Now, artists have filled the void, he said.

Space remains for singers and songwriters to lodge at Chamberlin's. When all spaces at the inn are filled, the arts council will allow people who find lodging elsewhere to sign up.

In anticipation of the retreat, Kelly and Bud Chamberlin traveled to Royal Oak to see some of the featured musicians perform, and several have come to Curtis to play. Mr. Lamb will perform in Curtis May 17.

He hopes the beauty of the U.P., combined with the knowledge of the retreat staff, will translate into inspiration for the singers and songwriters who find their way to Curtis, and if all goes well, this will be an annual event, Mrs. Chamberlin said.