Needless to say this site is permanently ‘work in progress’. I do plan to add more pictures from past camps. I am very interested in collecting pictures from previous participants.

The Waitaki Summer Music Camp is an annual event held at the Waitaki Boy’s High School in January. Basically what happens is that a bunch of amateur musicians get together with a few professionals for a week, we form an orchestra and play a public concert. This is unbelievably good fun and just about everyone plays better than they would have believed possible at the beginning of the week.

The Waitaki Boy’s High School is a great place to hold the camp. There are clean simple rooms at a reasonable price and even cheaper places in the shared dormitories or for camping.

The age range of musicians in the orchestra was 9 to 87 in 2001. There were some even younger participants in the ‘junior programme.’

A feature of the camp is the use of spare time for such diverse activities as juggling and visiting the blue penguin colony. There are also evening concerts of chamber music provided by anyone brave enough. The tutors show off their skills too, providing some very high quality entertainment.