Making Music – and Progress – at Middle School Band Camp

Making Music – and Progress – at Middle School Band Camp

Wednesday, August 24th, 2022

The band room at Mountainside High School is filled with laughter and a wild cacophony of scales and notes, until the conductor taps her baton on her music stand. The room quickly quiets and the middle school band musicians turn their focus to her, with their instruments at the ready. At the end of the two-week Middle School Band Camp, these young musicians will perform for friends and family, and they are eager to practice for the performance.

The Middle School Band Camp is one of many summer enrichment programs supported by Beaverton Education Foundation this year. BEF awarded $146,000 to projects and programs that meet the academic and social emotional needs of thousands of Beaverton students this summer.

“We’re incredibly grateful for BEF’s award. We were going to have to charge for the Band Camp when BEF came through! Now the summer program is free to all 120 participating students,” says Blake Allen, Beaverton School District’s K-12 Visual and Performing Arts Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) who directs the camp. The camp serves rising seventh through ninth graders from across the District who’ve completed at least one year of band class.

What makes the Middle School Band Camp unique is the amount of individualized musical instruction students receive, says Allen. The first hour of camp is spent in “sectionals” when District music teachers and professional musicians help students focus on learning their specific instruments. 

“These morning sections are a great time to really learn their instruments, especially for students who can’t afford or don’t take private lessons on their own,” Allen adds. The young musicians also play music side by side with their teachers when the full bands rehearse for the remaining two hours of camp. “It’s really helpful for students to hear how the teachers play their own instruments, and students can learn from them when they get stuck or need advice.”

Cameron Jerde, Southridge High School’s band director, is back teaching at camp for his second summer and is struck by the improvement he sees — over the two week camp, and year to year. 

“It’s exciting to see how much every student improved this summer. The returning students especially made leaps and bounds compared to last summer,” says Jerde, who led the low brass section, which includes his main instrument the euphonium, along with tubas, trombones and baritone horns. “As younger students, they struggled to produce sound, now they’re all making better and louder sounds, filling up the horns with air.”

International School of Beaverton seventh grader Samuel can’t wait until he can come back next summer. “At camp, I get individual help playing the flute that I can’t get during band class at school,” he says. “I’m improving my skills and I learned new techniques that will help me when I join the Concert Band this year. Camp is super fun!”

“At their final performance, our Band Camp students demonstrated how much progress they made in two short, but intensive, weeks,” says Allen. “We are grateful to the Beaverton Education Foundation for making Band Camp possible for our students for free this summer.”