Sisters hosts song academy for youth

Thirty students from five high schools throughout Central Oregon spent last weekend in Sisters absorbed in song. The event - the first annual Americana Project Song Academy for Youth - was patterned after the Sisters Folk Festival's Americana Songwriting Academy which is held each year in conjunction with the folk festival.

According to Americana Project executive director Brad Tisdel, one of the goals of the youth academy was to build a sense of community among students involved in various Americana Project programs throughout Central Oregon.

"Our hope is through a program like what we're doing this weekend to bring kids together so that the (Americana) Project is more community-wide throughout Oregon, as opposed to community-wide just in Sisters," Tisdel said.

Students from Edwin Brown High School in Redmond, Summit High School in Bend, Crook County High School in Prineville, Taft High School in Lincoln City and Sisters High School attended the weekend of music. The Sisters group had the most representatives with 10 attendees.

More than 10 instructors worked with the students. Four, Benji Nagel, Travis Ehrenstrom, Monica Offield and Kerani Mitchell, are Sisters High School Americana Project graduates.

"That vertical mentoring, meaning students who are alumni of the Americana Project teaching, is a really beautiful process," said Tisdel. "It gives the alums an opportunity to really hone their teaching skills but also shows kids in the program that maybe they could be the teacher some day."

Local musicians Brent Alan, Willie Carmichael, Dale Largent, Patrick Pearsall, Shireen Amini and Mike Biggers also worked with students, as did songwriter John Shipe from Eugene and Tom Owczarzak from Lincoln City, who is both a community advocate and volunteer for the Americana Project in his community.

The song academy was provided free of charge to all students who attended. Funding was secured by a grant through a local foundation and the Sisters Folk Festival, and two of the schools footed the bill for their students to attend.

Throughout the three-day program students could choose from two or three classes that ran concurrently during each time period. A wide variety of classes were offered, including songwriting, guitar technique, lyrics, performance anxiety, music theory and sustaining inspiration.

Saturday night an open mic performance was held for academy participants at The Barn at Pine Meadow Ranch. According to Tisdel, the event was organized to be closed to the public for a very specific reason.

"Imagine this being a camp. When you break the community of the camp and new people come in, it feels more threatening. If you keep everybody who has been together for the last day-and-a-half for that performance, there's much more of a family, supportive energy," he said.

During the interchange at the barn, academy participants were given the opportunity to perform their favorite song.

"It's an opportunity for all of the kids to get on what I think would be considered a pretty big stage and play their song that they're most proud of, and that could be in a solo, duo, trio, however they want to present their music," said Tisdel.

Tisdel's hope was also for the evening to provide the students with an excuse to simply have fun with their music in a forum of support, giving them a "sense of self-empowerment to do their music better." Biggers echoed this desire: "It gives them (students) a huge amount of self-confidence, which even if they quit playing music can translate into other things that they do. It certainly exposes them to ways to approach songwriting and music and ways to do things differently."

Lincoln City Americana volunteer Owczarzak believes the weekend song academy was well worth the travel for his students.

"It gave them immense confidence and understanding and empathy with the other students, realizing that they are not alone in their questions and their anxieties and their triumphs. It helped them to really focus on becoming better musicians rather than worrying about how they fit in," he said.