Abstract

Each summer, scores of students, teachers, and foreign volunteers gather across Haiti to participate in the ritual of summer music camp. Regardless of the genre each individual student hopes to learn or improve, all students undergo rigorous training using classical music as the primary pedagogical tool. This presentation is a close examination of that use. Although the aesthetic attributes of classical music have been considered extensively, the genre’s practical use value is undertheorized. Classical music is used to teach technical skills, to articulate personal identity, and to create relationships throughout local and global communities. By focusing on the presence and power of classical music as heard within the summer camp system, I invite us to consider what this learning environment teaches us about the ways that amateur classical music study and performance function in contemporary society, both in Haiti and beyond.