Youth Guitar Lessons & Garage Band Workshops

Guitarist Todd Miller taught group and private lessons to middle-school guitar students. This was followed by garage band workshops, with students added on bass, drums, and vocals. The student group learned how to organize their band and hold regular rehearsals. They ended the project in a performance for the community.

Parker Quartet

The GRAMMY Award-winning Parker presented an after-school program for K–5 students at the Cook County Community Center. The quartet performed, talked about their instruments and classical music, and answered many questions from young audience members.

Titambe West African Drum & Dance Ensemble

Ghanaian master drummer Christian Adeti and his ensemble, Titambe, presented an all-ages West African dance class at the Grand Marais Art Colony. The group then taught drumming and dance workshop for youth K–8. Participants from the youth workshops performed a drum song and a dance with Titambe at a concert that evening.

Get Outdoors Family Day with the Okee Dokee Brothers

The GRAMMY Award-winning duo performed, talked about their passion for music and the outdoors, and encouraged kids to talk, ask questions, dance, and sing along. A “free-choice” time of outdoor family activities followed—including hiking and biking the trail system behind Birch Grove Community Center and a guided kid’s activity at Sugarloaf Cove Nature Center.

Colette Illarde and MGQ

The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet (MGQ) taught an adult classical guitar master class at the Grand Marais Art Colony. Renowned flamenco dancer Colette Illarde then taught a beginning flamenco dance class for all ages, accompanied by live music from the MGQ!

Guy Davis “Roots and Routes of the Blues”

Acclaimed acoustic bluesman Guy Davis taught all-age participants the Delta and Piedmont blues picking styles at G.M. Public Library. Davis, who’s held youth residencies at Lincoln and Kennedy Centers, played “Shortnin’ Bread” like nobody’s business, made his harmonica bark like a dog, grunt like a pig, and rattle like a train, and taught a group of young volunteers how to swing an ax in the kind of rhythm that fuels the blues.

Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca All-Ages Music & Learning Program

Los Angeles Afro-Cuban band Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca presented an all-ages program at the Grand Marais Public Library, performing and teaching Afro-Cuban and pan-African rhythms and dance steps. Lemvo and band taught the history of Afro-Cuban music, including how the music traveled from Africa to Cuba, then back to Africa, blending cultures and music on its journey.