Birch Creek Video Samples & Performances
All Symphony session students at Birch Creek are assigned to a chamber ensemble which rehearses daily and is coached by a faculty member. These ensembles perform for prelude music before evening concerts and at the final afternoon concert of the session.
At Birch Creek, students combine with the faculty to form the 80 member Birch Creek Symphony Orchestra. They perform 6 concerts (4 entirely different programs) during their 2-week residency, plus have numerous opportunities to perform in their chamber ensembles.
Johannes Brahms
Conductor: Brian Groner
Play Length: 10:59
Composer: Sir Edward Elgar
Conductor: Brian Groner
Play length: 3:53
Composer: Claude Debussy
Conductor: Brian Groner
Play length: 9:40
Composer: Claude Debussy
Conductor: Brian Groner
Play length: 7:02
Composer: Claude Debussy
Conductor: Brian Groner
Play length: 8:31
Composer: Antonin Dvorak
Performers: Birch Creek Student String Quintet
Play length: 9:18
All students in the Percussion & Steel Band session learn to play the steelpan and are placed in a Birch Creek steel band. Steel bands rehearse daily and perform 8 times during the students’ 2-week residency.
Composer: Pharrell Williams
Arranged by: Yuko Asada
Director: Liam Teague
Play length: 3:08
Performers: Birch Creek Percussion and Steel Band Students – 2014
Composer: Ben Wahlund
Director: Ben Wahlund
Play length: 2:40
Performers: Birch Creek Percussion and Steel Band Students – 2014
Composer: Ken “Professor” Philmore
Director: G. Alan O’Connor
Play length: 3:41
Performers: Birch Creek Steel Band with Liam Teague
At Birch Creek, students perform in large groups and small ensembles. They perform in 7 concerts and 2 to 3 combo performances. They also have additional opportunities to perform in other public outreach concerts.
LINER NOTES with David Bixler (Birch Creek Jazz II Faculty, saxophone)
Listen to this insider’s look into the Birch Creek Academy experience as told by Jazz II faculty members in David Bixler’s podcast, released on April 1, 2020.
For the past twenty years I have taught and performed at Birch Creek, a music camp tucked away in a converted dairy farm on the thumb of Wisconsin. In this episode I interview some of the people that make this place happen. I invite you to listen to them as they describe what happens in this barn in the middle of nowhere and the power it has on the lives of those who experience it. – David Bixler
Composer: Frank Foster
Director: Nic Meyer
Performers: Birch Creek Studio Band
Play Length: 4:30
Composer: Ferde Grofé
Director: José Encarnación
Performers: Birch Creek Jazz Ambassadors
Play length: 12:35
Composer: Dizzy Gillespie
Arranged by: Gil Fuller
Director: Phil Crews
Performers: Birch Creek Lab Band
Play length: 3:13
Composer: James Ellis
Arranged by: Kris Berg
Director: Jim Stombres
Performers: Birch Creek Studio Band
Play length: 4:46
Composer: Duke Ellington
Director: Jeff Campbell
Performers: Birch Creek Acadamy Jazz Orchestra
Play length: 6:36
Birch Creek is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
