About Choro Camp

If you have fallen in love with the Brazilian musical tradition called “choro” (or “chorinho”), we know this much: you have good taste.

We know too that as a musician setting out to play this music you’ve got a lot of fun – and, let’s be honest – a piece of work ahead of you. Even in Brazil, learning to play choro presents daunting musical challenges. The repertoire is vast and complex; the masters are, well, masterful. Taking on the challenge in North America we face additional obstacles: few experts nearby, few people to play with, barriers of language and culture, etc.

Choro Camp New England is here to help you navigate these obstacles and get to the fun part – playing choro together – as quickly as possible. Whether you are a relative newcomer to the genre looking to get off on the right foot or an experienced chorão ready to dive deeper, we offer a place to gather, to learn and to play to your heart’s content.

Here’s how…

Instructional Program Overview

Roda de Choro Raphael Rabello – Renata Samarco

The instructional program at Choro Camp New England is designed with several goals in mind:

• We learn by doing, which is to say, by playing choro.
• We seek to engage both experienced chorões and newcomers to the genre.
• We recognize choro as incorporating – and, in turn, influencing – other Brazilian musical genres. So  we may include the study and enjoyment of samba, forró, frevo, etc.

Core Repertoire

You will encounter a much wider variety of tunes over the course of camp, but for instructional purposes we’ll give close attention to a selection of 10 compositions that make up our Core Repertoire. Those tunes will be organized by their underlying rhythm – polca, maxixe, choro, samba, etc. – so participants get a good introduction to rhythms commonly used by choro composers and performers.

Months before Choro Camp, we prepare extensive materials — video accompaniments, lead sheets and reference recordings — that will support you you in learning the Core Repertoire so you can fully participate at camp from day one.

Instrumental Groups

While some classes at Choro Camp will be designed for mixed instrumentation, others will be devoted to  instrumental groups. Those groups are as follows:

• Wind Instruments
• Mandolin / Bandolim
• Accordion and Keyboards
• Bowed Strings
• Guitar (6 and 7 string)
• Cavaquinho
• Pandeiro and other Percussion

Each of these instrumental groups will have at least one teacher assigned to it, and several will have two. The primary factor determining the number of faculty assigned to an instrumental group is the number of registered participants who have indicated they belong to it. If you need a reason to register early, there you have it.

On Reading Music

Having the ability to read standard music notation will make it easier for you to participate fully at Choro Camp and in the wider world of choro. But choro is also very much an oral tradition. So whether you can read standard notation easily or not, we encourage you to work from available recordings and videos of the tunes as much as possible. We’ll provide suggested recordings, but searching out others is half the fun.

Daily Schedule at Camp

A typical day at Choro Camp is built around three 90-minute class sessions:

10-11:30 Meet by Instrumental Groups 
During these classes, the instrumental groups listed above will work on two tunes from our Core Repertoire, which will be organized by the rhythm in which they are played.

1:30 – 3 Rodas de Choro 
Play time! These facilitated rodas for mixed instrumentation will focus on the repertoire we studied in the instrumental groups. 

4 – 5:30 Special Topics
“Special topic” offerings could include anything of interest to our teachers and participants.

Other Times / Other Activities
Both morning and evening there will be additional activities on the schedule. These will definately include camper-led rodas de choro, and may also include additional special topic classes, a roda de samba, a Forró party, presentations, maybe even a camper-led yoga or exercise offering.  It’s also fine to do your own thing during “off hours.” The choice is yours, and often not easy!

The Choro Shop

Our retail store, The Choro Shop, carries hard-to-find Brazilian books and instruments —7 string guitars, bandolins, cavaquinhos, pandeiros, etc. The shop is open year-round online, but at Choro Camp you have the chance to thumb through books and, most importantly, check out the instruments in person and compare them side-by-side. Even in Brazil there’s almost nowhere that offers you that opportunity. Whether you buy one or not, it’s a terrific educational experience.

Venues

With classes, rodas, housing and food all on the campus of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, we invite you to leave your car and cares behind. At week’s end we’ll enjoy a concert by the artists on our staff.

Then we all head for home. If we’ve done our job, you’ll leave exhausted and inspired. But most importantly, you’ll be better equipped to take a leading role in a roda de choro in your area—so you can be having as much fun year round as you’re going to have here.