Hoot Camp
Summer Music Camp for Young Musicians and Songwriters
Hoot Camp offers a week of learning and jamming with Indiana’s hottest newgrass string collective, Debutants! From festivals across the country to Fort Wayne’s very own Clyde Theater, Debutants have dazzled audiences with their innovative arrangements and high energy live shows!
Designed for students in grades 4-12, this week-long camp will explore ear training and improvisation in an acoustic string band setting. Students can register for violin/fiddle, guitar, mandolin, banjo, upright bass, cello, or viola. Students will spend each day learning from the touring performers and licensed educators that make up Debutants. Students will engage with each other to learn new skills and collaborate in an intensive and hands-on musical experience. Working sided-by-side with professional musicians, students will learn traditional songs and melodies as well as an original Debutants song to play in a stage performance with the band.
Debutants
Formed by longtime friends, Lynn Nicholson and Jon Swain, Debutants have evolved into a formidable string band with eclectic influences ranging from traditional folk, bluegrass, and Irish music, to classic and indie rock, rockabilly, jam bands, and anything else they feel like playing. Regardless of genre, what always manages to come through loud and clear, whether in-studio or on stage, is the amount of fun they’re having playing together, and the vibrant life breathed into their music. Nicholson and Swain share the role of lead singer/songwriter for the group, with much collaboration in each song’s development. Since 2021 they have recorded several albums with recording engineer and producer Tyler Thompson (Fruition, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, Jay Cobb Anderson) at his Studio 110 in Pittsburgh, PA. Since their 2021 debut release, Indiana Newgrass – EP, Debutants performs and tours as the seven member string collective lead by mandolin/vocalist Lynn Nicholson and guitar/vocalist Jon Swain with banjoist Michael Earl Newsome, fiddle player Sean Hoffman (Goldmine Pickers, The Goat’s Beards, Soltré), bassist/vocalist Colin Taylor (Uncle Muscle, Hillbilly Casino) violinist/vocalist Lauren Blair (Fort Wayne Philharmonic) and cellist/vocalist Ellen Coplin (Soltre, Bobcat Opossum).
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