Madeline Island Music Camp
Madeline Island Music camp, established in 1985, is one of many summer music camps in the United States for pre-college and college-age music students. As the name suggests, it is held on Madeline Island, the largest of Wisconsin's Apostle Islands, which is known for variable summer temperatures ranging from the cool 50s to the warm 80s with sticky humidity. The camp, which emphasizes chamber music ensembles, is split into two separate programs. For 28 days in June and July, an average of 50 string and piano students aged 12 to 24 populate the music camp facilities as well as the town of La Pointe, a five-minute walk away, for intensive MusicAL training in string quartets or piano ensemble literature. After the string and piano students leave, woodwind and horn-playing college students inhabit the camp for a week of training in wind ensembles.
The camp has a variety of faculty members who teach, coach, and interact with the students. In the 2006 season, the students of the Piano and String program worked for a week each with the Ames Piano Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, the Shanghai String Quartet, and the Arianna String Quartet. In the 2007 season, the Pacifica Quartet and the Arianna String Quartet returned for another year, and were joined by the Alexander String Quartet. A highlight of this season was the Pacifica Quartet's performance of a complete cycle of the string quartets of Beethoven during their two-week stay.