Top Left Corner #160
BAAMS Grand Opening

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Independence Day, 2022

[JASON VELÁZQUEZ]

And this is episode 160 of the Top Left Corner recorded Monday, July 4th, 2022. I’m your host, Jay Velázquez, welcoming you to the show, and I hope that you’re having a good Independence Day. Whatever you might be doing — maybe you’re going to a parade or grilling up some burgers and dogs or maybe getting ready to go to a baseball game or fireworks — I hope it’s safe, healthy, happy, and maybe you leave a little bit of time in your schedule for a little contemplation. Contemplation about what to Americans is the 4th of July. Riffing off Frederick Douglass’ “What, to a Slave is the 4th of July?” I think that this is a year that we should be doing some introspection about the nature of this country. And, you know, we’re going to be doing that on shows like the Top Left Corner and probably, oh goodness, certainly Growl. Other shows we’ll be talking about it going forward because it’s a conversation that is long overdue. What exactly is this country? I think a lot of the times we think we know. But if we’re not talking about it, if we haven’t reached some sort of consensus about what is the United States of America, and what do we what do we aspire to be, and are we actually doing those things that would get us there, then we’re not really, we’re just sort of on autopilot.

And I think, you know, when you put yourself on autopilot, this is where you get. But we’re not going to dwell on the negative too much today. We have other shows to do that, as I said. But we do have on this show today, we have a great conversation that is about something truly liberating, which is music. We have as our guests the Berkshires Academy for Advanced Musical Studies founder and Executive Director, Richard Boulger and Director of Development and Communications, Jane Forrestal, who are here to talk about the grand opening of this new music academy in its new home in building six of the Western Gateway Heritage Park. And they’re going to be throwing a big old hoedown on July 17th from 1 to 5 p.m.. And it is going to be featuring so much music. It is going to be headlined by the legendary drummer and founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, Jaimoe Johanson, performing with BAAMS’s faculty, students and friends, including Richard Boulger, Victor Jones, Alex Blake, David Gilmore, Dario Boente, Kris Jensen, Gina Coleman, Jim Taft, Braden Collins, Luke Zeto and probably possibly other surprise guests. So mark that slot July 17th all afternoon pretty much as as booked because you should be there food and drink will be available from the freight yard pub and you can get more information by emailing [email protected].

Since I’ve spent enough time talking, why don’t I liberate you from listening to me? And we’ll get to that conversation with Richard Boulger and Jane Forrest. All right. Here on the top left corner.

Top Left Corner: [00:00:00] And with me on the line is Richard Boulger, who is the executive director of the Berkshires Academy’s for the Advanced Medical Studies. Welcome to the top left corner, Richard.

Richard Boulger: [00:00:13] Thank you, Jason. It’s great to be with you. Good morning.

Top Left Corner: [00:00:16] So, you know, this is as it always is, it’s casual conversation. You know, we like to just sort of meander a bit. That’s our style here. And never more so than when we’re talking about music. It’s a subject that we we delve into quite a bit here. It’s one it’s one of the things that I started The Greylock Glass for to promote local music. And I’m so excited to hear and share about share news about this this awesome new institution. First, give us a sense of why this academy was conceived.

Richard Boulger: [00:00:55] Well, for me, it’s been a lifetime of searching and studying and with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd and many other masters, and taking so many complex ideas that they share with me and put them through a filter so that they would be accessible to young people. And for the past 20 years, before moving back to the Berkshires, I actually spent several years living in New York and teaching in Brownsville and Brooklyn and some of New York’s more underserved communities, if you will, and had great success with helping young people tap into their talents and really see firsthand transformations in their lives, not only as young musicians, but it would directly carry over into their lives as human beings. With that said, in 2020, my partner Jane Forrestal, and I decided that we are both from originally raised in North Adams, and after so many years we thought, wouldn’t it be great to bring this back to our home, to the Berkshires? And so we have taken this lifetime of experiences and now we believe it’s such an opportunity and we’re so excited to share with young people in Berkshire County and greater regional areas, to really give kids an opportunity to tap into their talents as young musicians and as artists. The the premise of this Berkshires Academy for Advanced Musical Studies is that the teaching methodology that we use, and that’s called the learning system that I’ve developed, and it’s based on the fact that your musical instrument is actually an amplifier of what you are hearing, thinking and feeling. So we teach kids that they are the source, they are the source of music, and we teach kids how to express their own unique life experiences, their emotions and all that they are as human beings.

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Top Left Corner: [00:03:08] That’s very cool. And and I feel like you’ve you’ve made that you’ve given the description before because that was really a nice complete package delivered as if as if you were pitching it to a bunch of parents who might not be thinking, okay, well, my kid’s school offers music instruction, but what would be the benefit of going to a of of of going beyond that? What sorts of things would students be doing or would would youth be doing in the academy that they’re not getting at as good as the school’s music program might be? What sorts of things are going to differentiate that?

Richard Boulger: [00:03:56] Yeah, so stereotypically in almost all situations, what you see with kids when they first start to learn Music Day one generally consists of a case with an instrument inside. That’s one component. The second is a book that normally comes with that, an instructional book. The third is a music stand to put actually put the paper or the music sheet music or book onto the stand. And then you have the music instructor. So you have all these and of course the students. So you have all these different elements at one time being introduced to the kid, the child, the student. And so what I found is years ago, as a young person, just learning how to play music was it was this overwhelming and that the focus for many years was really on an external source of the source of sound was coming from an external experience, in this case, a written piece of music and a band instructor conducting and leading. And so the difference. Is it bombs? We teach our kids that they are the source. We have a whole learning system that is really based in teaching kids how to hear, how to hear, how to think and how to even feel their experiences and put that into sound. So we have a whole teaching methodology that’s very unique. And as I mentioned earlier, that was given to me through two master musicians, Freddie Hubbard and Donald Bird, none of which both Freddie and Donald never wrote these things down, these ideas down. So I’m truly humbled and blessed to be able to carry forth their ideas and share it with young students.

Top Left Corner: [00:05:37] Now, I think that’s a very holistic approach. And I couldn’t agree more that that the source you only have to look at, look at young children to see that they’ve got the they’ve got the music in them. It’s already there, you know, whether or not they are sort of, you know, naturally drawn toward, you know, strings or percussion or singing or whatever it might be. It doesn’t take a lot to draw it out of them. What is the age group that you’re talking about for for for this academy? Are we talking young kids or older kids? What what’s the range?

Richard Boulger: [00:06:24] Well, right now we’re primarily focusing in on kids 12 to 18. And that’s that’s where now our primary focus. We’re also planning on extending this our offer, our the opportunity to work with older adults, if you will, fairly we’re thinking in the fall we’ll be extending out that offer. So I myself personally have had the same teaching methodology used on several so-called non-musicians professional people. I have students who are lawyers or people in finance or doctors, graphic designers, etc., and they consistently find that in going through this process of learning the learning system, they there’s a direct carryover from how they have evolved musically, but also in their own professional lives, how they communicate with their colleagues. And they just see pronounced changes in their overall lives in addition to their musical growth and gains.

Top Left Corner: [00:07:19] This is a great area for it, and I think it’s a great area for it because, number one, there is an arts foundation here, but it’s also a great area because we do not actually have the same. Musical landscape, a live performance landscape that say the Pioneer Valley does North Northampton, you know, in the middle of the five colleges area, they’ve got many more venues that you can you can play at. We don’t have a lot of venues here, and I’m really hoping that with an increased saturation, it will sort of just sort of spontaneously generate maybe some more interest in in live performance. Tell me something about your views on and this is a big, big thing for me. There’s a lot of folks here who are you know, they’re putting on shows that are like tribute bands, which, you know, they’re fun, you know, a Beatles tribute, a, you know, Led Zeppelin tribute, whatever. And but it does tend to crowd out the space for original music. So when you’ve got tribute bands, cover bands, and that seems to be the the bulk of what’s what’s on offer on a Friday night. How do you compete with that with with original music? How do you get people to the audiences? Because, you know, the the missing part of the equation in all of this is that music is shared and the audiences have to be receptive. So what what can we do as a as a as a region to help nurture these audience, as audiences, as well as the artists themselves?

Richard Boulger: [00:09:15] Hmm. That’s a that’s a great question. I think on some level, it really does start with younger generations in terms of educating kids at a younger age. And as they grow and get older, they’ll have the the insights, the wiring and the brain, if you will, in terms of the awareness that they can have to perceive as listeners and appreciate original music ultimately and the creative process. I wanted to just touch upon something you said about tribute bands as opposed to creating original music. I always remember what Donald Byrd shared with me the one time he shared actually several, several, several times when I was working with him. It probably the lasting sounds in my mind when I think of Donald Byrd, where he used to always say to me, don’t do what they did do as they did and don’t do what they did do as they did. And I think that that’s sort of a mantra that’s been driving me for many, many years, that it’s one level to be able to and I say this very respectfully to so many great musicians, but I see it as in some way, if you’re playing what’s already been played over and over again, there’s some form of regurgitation.

Richard Boulger: [00:10:29] And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I just feel that we also should celebrate the the magic and the majesty of the creative moment, the possibilities of sound that can can evolve if we’re open to that. And I think being here in the Berkshires, there’s just so many, I guess I’d call them sacred spaces and places like Greylock. My goodness, Natural Bridge. Yeah, the list goes on and on and on. And what does that sound like? How do we get young kids to be able to tap into go to these places and in the moment tap into these experiences and have a genuine transference of sound through their instruments in the moment, communicate on that level. So we’re really we’re really interested in helping kids compose, improvise, create their own music. And to your point, we hope to be able to start to as soon as we can, having our original groups of young musicians going out and playing in the community. Very.

Top Left Corner: [00:11:33] Very event. Very cool. That’s that’s the way. That’s definitely the way. And and, you know, the idea that there might be a Berkshires sound, whether it’s rock or jazz or blues, that’s a that’s a neat idea. I would love to I would love to sort of see what all of that distillation sort of generates when it comes to, you know, what do you what do you think of when you hear, you know, Berkshires Berkshires folk Berkshires blues. And and I see I see a lot of opportunity for that. This obviously, how many how many students do you expect to be able to have at any given week or month? Do you have a limit?

Richard Boulger: [00:12:21] Right. So for our jazz camp, which is coming up, this would be our fourth jazz camp this August 15th through the 19th, where we have 30 to 50 slots open for kids. And that’s that’s about a 50 sort of our our high end. And 30 is somewhere in there. So we are definitely encouraging. Young people to visit our website and sign up for that. Ww That Berkshires Academy AMS dawg. They can they can have more information on the jazz camp. Moving into the fall, we are also in the number of about 60 to as high as maybe even 100 students depending. But we have because of the nature of what we’re teaching, it’s each student we see, each student has their own voice. It’s not a cookie cutter generic type of approach here. It also like to say that I have handpicked a faculty that I am just so thrilled with. I consider each one of these musicians world class in every way. Number one, they all have. They’re all fantastic recording artists who tour with major, major, major labels and or artists themselves. That’s number one. So they’re fantastic musicians. Number two, they’re great teachers. They’re passionate about what they do. They they want to help each kid open up the tap into their potential. And number three, they’re just really good human beings. And to me, you’ve got to have a good heart. You’ve got to be a good person, have a good spirit to be able to connect with kids. Because ultimately what we want to do is inspire, inspire young people to want to play with the world that we live in. Sometimes more kids are interested in video games or being on a phone. How do we get kids back into playing music and really discovering the magic of the possibilities of playing a musical instrument that’s always.

Top Left Corner: [00:14:16] Well, having having two teenagers myself, that is an ever present question in this household. How do we make sure that they’re getting the the diverse set of experiences that, you know, that I had? You know, I was fortunate to have a bunch of, you know, musician, miscreant friends. And, you know, as a singer, we we absolutely were suffused with music, whether it was playing in garages or in dive bars or wherever it was. We that was part of who we were and what we what we did. And, you know, for those people who weren’t in the bands, they hung out. You know, they they were there, you know, often kind of hanging out and probably doing things that we weren’t, you know, would not have made our parents happy. But, you know, that’s kind of part of it, too, I suppose. Jane, I know that you can speak to a few other elements of bebop. What what would you say is. Well, first of all, just give us your sort of assessment of where this is going and and how it operates as an organization and how it’s going to sort of function within the broader community.

Jane Forrestal: [00:15:42] Sure. Well, that’s I can talk about that for a whole day. Yeah. So. So Band really is an organic organization that grew out of we’ve held three Berkshires Summer Jazz Band Day Camp. That showed us how energized the kids have been from learning alongside each other and with our faculty. And we really saw after the let’s see, our second day of camp, that’s when we really began to seriously think about how to bring this home and how to make it work. So the one parent said to me, I’ve never seen my daughter so energized to go home and practice new things that she’s learned about piano into in the span of two days. Chatting with with people after the child has been there for a day or two in the midst of the camp. And it’s an easy format. It’s not stressful. We start at noon, we finish at about 430 in the afternoon. It’s celebratory. It ends the camp ends with a big Friday night gala where students and faculty perform together. There’s usually solos, many solos taken. There’s usually an original song composed by the entire group that gets performed, sort of like the big world premiere of a brand new song that just came out of a week together. So one of the things that we feel about. Bringing this home is that this is a region that. Yes. It has a really strong cultural base. It has families who care about their children’s education and opportunities. But there’s not a lot of of options, as, again, we’ve heard from parents, they’re having to for additional learning. So if you have the kid who likes to play basketball during gym, will they join a league after school or they join the team? What does a music student do with their additional drive? Parents find themselves driving weekly to Northampton, to Albany, to Cambridge, Mass. And that this is a change for the region to be able to just find these resources right in their own backyard.

Top Left Corner: [00:18:07] And private private instruction is extremely expensive, too. I’m not we can talk about that a little bit later.

Jane Forrestal: [00:18:13] It is. And the expense part of it is that this is not a cheap undertaking we have in any regard. When you’re when you’re running an institution, serving a population of young people, it’s expensive. There are insurance policies to be bought and software and technical equipment, all the bills you can imagine to run something, and yet you want to make it as affordable as possible for the average family. Because one of the things that happens when a child considers an activity or a family considers it, the first thing they want to know is, can we afford it? Is it going to be just too much on us on top of all the other expenses of raising kids? And so what we’ve done is we structure our tuition to be affordable. We we are looking for a lot of support from the community, especially big business, who frankly have been doing so well in recent years that we would we would really hope that people. Realize the gift that that’s sitting right here in their midst and help us move this forward.

Top Left Corner: [00:19:27] I feel the same way about The Greylock Glass. So when you find those big businesses, you can send them my way. And whatever they have left over, they can they can help support The Greylock Glass. But, you know, the good news is that you are a 500 13c nonprofit, and that means that there are grants out there. Have you been have you been able to find things that that are good match grant opportunities?

Jane Forrestal: [00:19:55] Sure. Yeah. There are plenty of opportunities out there that are a good match. And one of the things that we ran up against, which is now beginning to shift when we first opened, was we opened in the midst of a pandemic. So the existing nonprofit culture that exists that that was already in operation here really needed huge help to just survive, to not have to close their doors. A lot of nonprofits depended on attendance, ticket buying and so on and so forth. And if you cannot reach your audience, everything ended. In our realm, we had to pivot. We went through something similar. We had to pivot all of our learning to online for the last two years during the school year. So the whether or not we qualified for grant moneys or survival money, there were there were grants put out to help nonprofits survive. We didn’t qualify because we were not in existence prior to January one, 2020. Right. We weren’t funded until April. So that cut out a lot of opportunity. However, the other thing that’s going to happen is people really are able to grasp what they can see and hear and experience. And now that the pandemic is beginning to truly lift, we’re coming back together as human beings in one space. Kids are going to be able to learn in person. People are audiences are going to be able to hear our people perform, whether it’s faculty, students or both. And, yes, I mean, you mentioned more live music venues in the region. That’s one of the things that BAAMS hopes to hopes to offer as well. So on a semi-regular basis that we put on BAAMSs presents just great events that audiences are going to love.

Top Left Corner: [00:21:58] That’s fantastic. Do you do you imagine whether you’ll be able to do it now or in the future that you’ll be able to come up with any sort of sliding scale or any scholarships?

Jane Forrestal: [00:22:09] Yes, we have been we have been offering scholarships. We really don’t want to turn anybody away who’s got any interest in studying with us. So it can be sometimes it’s a it’s a really happy situation where we’ve already received a grant from a town that says we want to support kids from name the town to attend your camp. And that’s what these funds should be used for. So when they’re earmarked like that, it’s a no brainer. We can easily help those kids out in other cases. Sometimes I have to say, okay, I’m going to go. I’m going to make ten phone calls and I’m going to try to find this tuition money for this particular student if we don’t have the funds already earmarked in our in our coffers. So it’s it can be a challenge. We. In general because the tuition is already so affordable. If you compare attendance at, say, the camps at Berkeley, we’re about a third of what they’re charging. And we’re here again. We’re right here in the beautiful Berkshires.

Top Left Corner: [00:23:17] Oh, yeah. And listen, you know, the price comparison, I’m sure, is is pretty stark when, you know, when you think of someplace like Berkeley. I am glad to hear that you do have awareness that for some families there is zero extra dollars available for these sorts of things, but tons of interest. So it’s it’s great that you’ve you’ve taken that taking the lead and creating a sort of as many as you can fit in the door regardless of ability to pay. Let’s let’s talk. And by the way, if if you haven’t hit the Mass Cultural Council, there are there’s some there’s some good grants that I think I remember seeing over the last couple of years that that probably fit pretty closely to your mission. So if I remember if I remember the names of the specific grants, I’ll send them your way. The this event. Now let’s let’s get to the reason that we’re talking the the the event that caught my eye and Gina Coleman who is I’m happy to see part of part of this event she sort of hit me to this. And it is a really fabulous sounding night of of music. Tell us about this. Is it what’s the function of it? Is it a fundraiser? Just give me the give me the skinny on here because this is going in the calendar.

Richard Boulger: [00:25:00] Yeah, it’s it’s actually an afternoon of music. So it’s July 17th, which is a Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. and it’s outdoors. So people should like bring a lawn chair and dress accordingly. But yeah, it’s an amazing event and this is sort of our way of saying We’re here. This is our grand opening celebration. And it also serves as the only big fundraiser of our summer to raise money for the jazz camp, for us to equip our new facility with a few more things that it certainly needs as any necessary things that we find when you start up. And then going into the fall lesson offerings and running the organization into the fall of 2022. So we’re hoping for a big turnout. We’re very excited to I don’t think we’re we’re talking with Jaimoe, who as you, you know, is is sort of our special guest, Allman Brothers Band, legendary founding drummer Jaimoe is is coming to play. And he he doesn’t think he’s ever played in North Adams. So this is sort of history in the making as well.

Top Left Corner: [00:26:12] It’s never too late to have a debut. And.

Richard Boulger: [00:26:16] Exactly.

Top Left Corner: [00:26:16] So this is Sunday, July 17th, 1 to 5 p.m. and this is at Heritage State Park, which is which is a great space that has been underutilized. But this is your new home now.

Jane Forrestal: [00:26:31] It is, in fact, where because of the number of guests that we expect, we’re going to be down in this sort of a central area, the courtyard area, our building is they’re building sixes all the way at the end on the left hand side of the park. It’s it’s beautifully laid out for our purposes. There’s really not much that we need to do to it to make it work. There’s two different larger performance and presentation spaces where we can also do ensemble rehearsals. Then there’s several smaller spaces with the ability for students to go in and practice or even record. That’s one of the things we’re so excited to be able to be doing eventually in the building is to record the kids original music and teach them about how to do it instead of handing something to them, teach them how to fish.

Top Left Corner: [00:27:23] Mm No, absolutely. And today it is so much easier. And I’ll bring Richard back in to the conversation here, because today you can have a laptop and that’s about it. If you if you to get started, it’s amazing what, what, what people are doing, which was already underway. I mean, let’s face it, the Internet made things like collaboration across continents for musical projects possible. And then with the. The pandemic, people started looking for even greater ways. But, you know, you can have a laptop and and do some amazing stuff. So the just the very art of recording, of music production and recording is has changed drastically in the last 20 years or so. So that’ll be interesting to see what what the students do. Richard, this is going to be an afternoon of just smoking hot music. Tell us about who’s going to be there and what we’re going to hear.

Richard Boulger: [00:28:35] Yeah, Jason. So we have we have some fantastic musicians who are going to come out in addition, of course, to Jamal, as Jane mentioned. We have guitarist David Gilmore. David is a longtime faculty member. Also, all of our members, for the most part, are going to be are also our faculty members advanced. But David has been teaching at Berklee, Berklee College of Music since 2006, long time touring with Wayne Shorter and just so, so many other great artists. That’s Dave. We have another drummer, Victor Jones, who has just met longtime drummer of Stan Getz. Chaka Khan. He’s just a fantastic, great drummer. We have the great Alex Blake on bass. Alex is a former member of Sunrise Orchestra and Sonny Rollins and Freddie Hubbard and just the who’s who of the music world. Let’s see. Keep running down the line. And we have a great pianist named Dario Valente who just won his, I think his third Grammy Award or something. So he’s doing pretty well. And let’s see, we also have a few more. We have some dear friends of ours who are going to be joining us. Also, we have a childhood friend of mine who’s now a master musician in his own right now, Jim Taft, fantastic vocalist and drummer. And just he’s a super musician and of course, the one and only Jenna Coleman. Mr. Blues, I’m just so grateful for Gina. She’s every time I’ve had a chance to work with her on a series of her projects and everything that she serves up is just pure soul.

Richard Boulger: [00:30:27] So we also finally have a great saxophone player will be joining us, Mr. Chris Jensen. Chris Jensen and I go way back to my days when we first started studying at the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford at the School of Music back in the mid eighties. And Chris is an alumni excuse me, Chris is an alumni of Dickey Betts, Great Southern for nine years, and also the Maynard Ferguson Band for a long period of time. And Chris is actually the reason why I got involved myself, was introduced to Jaimoe and consequently started touring with Gregg Allman’s band and the Allman Brothers. So everything’s sort of coming full circle for us as sort of an extended family, if you will, of musicians and coming together for a common cause, which is to bring a spirit and energy, if you will, of just trying to introduce the community to what the possibilities of music are. I would say that there’s no rehearsals for this. There’s no music on stands. We’re just going to show up and tap into the moment and we’re going to play. And I think that’s sort of the spirit of what we honor is, is that the music itself will tell us what it wants to do. So I just couldn’t be more excited about July 17th.

Top Left Corner: [00:31:47] Nm Likewise, this is going to be great food and drink from the freight yard pub nearby. So people have they can bring their appetites for for vittles as well as, as music. The what it’s an outdoor show. Just, I don’t want to jinx anything obviously but do you have any is able to be something you can pull inside if need be.

Richard Boulger: [00:32:18] To be honest with you, we’re sort of rolling the dice here. We’ve got the number we’re looking for is we’re anticipating 400 folks to show up. So that’s about where we’re that world of a number, somewhere in that ballpark. And if it rains, it rains. But we’re sort of having faith in the guys will be good to us for that day.

Top Left Corner: [00:32:39] That’s a you know, a lot of events this summer have done pretty well. So I’m going to I’m going to guess that that the gods will be good to you. Well, any I guess we have the website in the show notes. I’ll put a link to not just the. Academy, but also the event bright tickets. Tickets are on sale, I assume, right now for this event. And probably once people start hearing about this, I have a feeling there’s you’re going to want to you’re going to want to scooch. You’re going to want to hurry up and grab these tickets. Because 400 people that’s you know, that sells out quickly when it’s this caliber of of a production. I think that that’s what I want people to take away from this is that you’re not going to get this every weekend anywhere. This is a star studded band. And like you said, a bunch of musicians who are able to actually let the music make the decisions. And that’s not everybody. You know, that’s that’s something that, like you said, there’s no music stand. There’s no you just you just going, I can’t wait for it. It’s going to be great. Let me just ask you one final thing. Are there any dates, deadlines for. Pre-registering for classes that students need to know about.

Richard Boulger: [00:34:21] Right. So our jazz camp is this summer. The fourth jazz campus Jane mentioned is going to be August 15th through the 19th. And so we would ask students to sign up as soon as they can. And we’ve got some slots still open, but we are getting students that are really starting to sign up. So if you have a child student who wants to join us, a young music student in your circles, please visit our website. And definitely we’d love to work with each of you.

Top Left Corner: [00:34:51] Well, this sounds great and I’m looking forward to it. Richard and Jane, thanks so much for coming on the Top Left Corner and telling us about this.

Richard Boulger: [00:35:00] Thank you, Jason, and thank you to GreylockGlass.com and all of your listeners. Thank you so much.

[JASON VELÁZQUEZ]

Well, there you have it. Quite the event, don’t you think? It’s going to be a lot of talent, a whole bunch of music, and it is for a great cause. And I really hope that people both locally and even maybe visitors who are here for the summer, for a couple of weeks, they give their kids a chance to to experience this intensive musical academy. I think it’s going to be great. Just having knowing there’s a jazz camp around means that there’s going to be some great recitals coming up, some some cool recitals to go to. So I think we’ll have the link, of course, in the show notes and and I hope to see you there.

So that’s our show for the day for this week. Tune in next week for whatever it is I have on tap. I don’t know exactly yet. I’ve got a couple of options, but sure, until then, stay safe. Be good to each other and go easy on yourself.