July 27-August 3, 2024 // Plymouth, MA

Take your skills to the next level!

During Harmony of Song & Dance at Pinewoods

Are you getting ready for a performance? Do you want to feel more confident about singing with or in front of other people? Join us for an amazing opportunity to work on your singing with singer and acting coach Ken Schatz in this week of master classes.

Program Description

Whether you’re an experienced or professional performer or just starting out, this course will help you become a better, more confident singing artist with all kinds of traditional, folk, and roots material in all kinds of performance situations—concerts, recording sessions, shows and films, festivals, workshops, special events, informal singing circles, and jam sessions. You’ll broaden your range and repertoire, rediscover songs that you love, book more gigs, have more fun, and amaze your audiences.

Course Details and Participation Requirements

Participation is limited to 12.

This class is for singers of all ages, styles, and experience levels. Coaching will be custom-tailored for each singer and for each song, and everyone will be learning all the time from everyone. And everyone will get to sing along on choruses!

The class meets for 2 hours/2 class periods each day.  We’ll work in master class format—each singer in turn sings in front of the class, receiving individual coaching, while the rest of the class actively observes.  Participants will likely have more than one chance to be in front of the group, working in-depth on your songs.  The rest of the time you’ll get to observe detailed work on a wide range of performance issues, material, styles, and technique principles.  Singers will sign up for Working Slots before our first class meeting. 

Note-taking is encouraged, but recording is not permitted.

Registration and Fees

This year we are using a sliding scale model to make this course accessible to more people. The sliding scale fee you choose will not affect your chance of getting into the course.

Full fee$1,080Covers all tuition, room, and board costs, so that we can pay our program staff and the wonderful facility we use. If you can afford to pay the full price, thanks for helping us make camp sustainable.
Low-income rates$810-$945For those who can’t afford full price. If these scaled down options still leave camp out of reach for you, we want to help you get to camp with additional supporting funds.
Supporter rates$1,350-$1,620For those who can easily afford full price, and more. Your generosity makes this flexible pricing structure work and makes camp more accessible to more people. Thanks for supporting this community!

If the course is oversubscribed on March 18, there will be a lottery with some preference given to applicants supported by their local community. Strong indicators of that support are our Affiliate priority and matching scholarship processes, where a CDSS Affiliate vouches for a participant and may offer some scholarship, asking CDSS to match that amount. This is a statement by people who know the individual, that the person is deserving of assistance and would benefit the local community by attending the course.

To learn more about available scholarships, visit our scholarships page.

To register, please log into the CDSS Commons, or visit our registration page for more information.

Course Leader

Ken Schatz is a renowned acting coach and a powerful a cappella singer with a lifetime of experience in traditional music and an eclectic repertoire of sea songs and chanteys, gospel, blues, ballads, and worksongs. His credits include performances and teaching workshops at major folk festivals, museums, clubs, and concert venues on both sides of the Atlantic, with many of America and Britain’s foremost interpreters of traditional song. He teaches Traditional/Folk/Roots Singing Styles and Performance Technique at Jalopy Theatre and School of Music in Brooklyn, and his monthly NYC pub singing session, Exceedingly Good Song Night, is a destination event.
www.exceedinglygoodsongs.com
www.thekenstudio.com