Enjoy the longest sunset of the year lake-side at Madden's and support the Lakes Area Music Festival's Education Programs!
As music lovers, we know the value of a music education and fostering a lifelong relationship with music. It improves confidence and teamwork, supports brain development and emotional intelligence, provides social connections, and so much more. Yet, only 20% of Brainerd High School youth are enrolled in music, and 80% want opportunities to be more involved.
The Lakes Area Music Festival is working to change that. Summer Solstice is a celebration of great food and music, featuring a quartet of opera singers performing familiar hits by Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Bizet, and more. This annual fundraiser – complete with raffles and auctions – benefits our youth education programs, including the Music Mentors Project which brings professional musicians into the public schools of our region to inspire young musicians.
SCHEDULE
5:30 p.m. — Registration Opens; Cocktail Hour
6:30 p.m. — Buffet Dinner
7:00 p.m. — Program begins
Featured Artists
About the Lakes Area Music Festival's Education Programs
Explore Music!
Our weeklong summer music day camp is a favorite of elementary aged youth in the Lakes Area. Kids move, dance, sing, and play instruments every day and exercise their creative muscles through guided improvisation. Our team of Teaching Artists bring their expertise in drumming, improvisation, theater, vocal studies, visual arts, and conducting our explorers.
In addition, the Sound Garden brings musical exploration to Northland Arboretum on Saturday, August 3, and the Festival's Family Conccert highlights much of the music students have explored throughout the week in a symphony concert called Thrills & Superheroes at the Gichi-ziibi Center on Sunday, August 4.
Music Mentors Project
The Music Mentors Project represents the Lakes Area Music Festival's year round commitment to providing young musicians with transformative education opportunities working directly with professional musicians.
Throughout the school year individuals and ensembles from the Festival roster – primarily the Minnesota Orchestra – are brought to the Lakes Area for day-long school residencies. Young musicians are inspired through performance demonstrations, sectionals and master classes, and individually instruction with guest musicians; and the connections formed through these activities continue as instructors return during the summer to perform at the Festival.
Last school year over 2,500 public students benefitted from musician visits, including K-12 students in central Minnesota public schools.