Composition Camp for Girls+

July 29-August 2, 2024
Monday to Friday

9:00 am-3:00 pm, with after care available until 5 - ages 9-13
9:00 am-4:00 pm - ages 11-high school
Students ages 11-13 may choose the track that is best for them.

Do you know a girl or nonbinary student who likes to goof around on a ukulele? Who hums tunes under her breath all the time? Who taps rhythms on the table a lot? Who says they think that song should go a different way? This might be the camp for them!

This camp is geared to girls and nonbinary students (ages 9–high school) who want a safe place to play with music and explore manipulating sound. Campers do not need to know traditional music notation and they do not need to be proficient on an instrument. They will get to explore a variety of instruments and different ways of creating music using both traditional tools and various software programs. The all-female faculty will be both mentors and role models who will work to nurture students and create a vibrant community.

In 2024, we will offer two tracks simultaneously, geared toward younger and older students. Students between 11 and 13 years old may opt into either track. Here are activities participants can expect to enjoy in each of these tracks:

Ages 9-13:

Make your own instrument
Making Beats
Improvisation Games

Ages 11-high school:

Orchestration
MuseScore
Music Theory
Improvisation
Historical Women Composers - biography and listening
Independent Composition Time

All students will:

Learn about several instruments from SPCM faculty, and will have the opportunity to compose for them.
Have a final “Salon”, sharing a selection of works-in-progress with family and friends.
Receive feedback and coaching from Composition faculty, in one-on-one lessons.

Price: $385
(Tuition includes a non-refundable $95 deposit)

Financial aid is available. For more information please email registration@thespcm.org.

2023 Composition
Camp for Girls+ Faculty

Dr. Sarah Miller, NCTM

Dr. Sarah Miller, NCTM has been teaching composition, theory and piano at MacPhail Center for Music since 1997 after receiving her Ph.D. in music composition from Michigan State University. She has been teaching at Junior Composers Institute since 2011.

Sarah’s students have received numerous awards in composition contests both state-wide and nationally. Sarah has received numerous commissions including “All Hearts Beat as One” for the South High School Wind Ensemble (2017) and “One-Dog Sleigh,” a piece for GTCYS Concertino Orchestra (2016). She recently received a 2020 State Arts Board Grant to write “Musicians in Motion at Mia” a set of pieces for small ensembles inspired by works at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. For more information you may visit SarahMiller-Music.com.

Sarah has pursued many grants and commissions since arriving in Minnesota. She is currently at work on my third State Arts Board Individual Artist Grant. This one, “Musicians in Motion at Mia” was originally conceived as a set of pieces inspired by art works at the Minneapolis Institute of Art to be performed next to those art works. Eventually that will happen, but in the meantime Sarah has adapted the project to be presented online and wrote for solo and duo instruments in order to enable social distancing. The Minneapolis Art Institute provided professional audio and video recording technicians who have created especially fine representations of the pieces. These should go live at artsmia.org in the near future.

The larger works Sarah has written often focus on social issues, because she is passionate about using her creative energies to address worldly concerns. In 2016 she received a MacPhail Artist Grant to create A State(ment) of Grace. She collaborated with three dancers to shape the piece. They created the choreography and Sarah composed the music. Together they also created a spoken-word script to accompany the dance and music. The resulting work features those 3 dancers, plus 4 singers and a cellist.

The pandemic brought many challenges to daily and professional life. Sarah attempted to learn something new each day to meet those challenges by drawing on her creativity and adaptability, and in that way to continue her search for beauty and joy in daily life.

Siobhann Paulman

In her teaching and creative work, Siobhann draws upon her experiences in the visual and performing arts. She has a BA in Art Education from St. Catherine University and an MA in Music Composition from Eastern Washington University, where she spent time composing pieces inspired by visual art, film, and dance. In her 18 years of teaching private piano and flute lessons, she has focused on infusing each lesson with the spirit of creative play, teaching her students how to improvise, compose, and experiment with sound. Her music teaching is influenced by Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Gordon’s Music Learning Theory, and Orff.

In addition to teaching music, Siobhann has worked as an adjudicator for local music composition festivals and competitions through the Association of Private Piano Instructors and the St. Paul Piano Teachers Association, taught art in an elementary school, and served as musical director for the Spokane Children’s Theater. She has also played flute and piano for musicals, weddings, church services, art galleries, private parties, and jazz jam sessions; and spent two years playing keyboard in a rock band.

Soomin Kim

Composer Soomin Kim loves to explore intimacy and familiarity through her music. Soomin received the three Morton Gould Young Composer Awards from the ASCAP Foundation in 2019, 2020, and 2022 respectively with her works conjunctions, THE EIGHTH SONG, and star / ghost / mouth / sea.

In 2022, her orchestration of Helen Hagan’s Piano Concerto in C minor was premiered by pianist and musicologist Samantha Ege and the Yale Philharmonia under direction of Peter Oundjian. In 2018, she was selected to write for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony as part of their Young & Emerging Composers Project. She was also the composer-in-residence with the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra during their 2017-18 concert season, for whom she wrote a piece titled The Blue Marble. Her work has been featured at the 2022 Aspen Music Festival, 2019 Bowdoin International Music Festival, the 2018 Norfolk New Music Workshop, and the 2018 soundSCAPE Festival, among many.

Her music has been performed by renowned artists such as percussionist Ji Su Jung, guitarist JIJI, and violinist Ariana Kim.