Django in June 2020 -- Artists on Staff

AndrewLawrence · January 2020

Hi Folks:

Just a heads up that we have updated the "Artists" page for Django in June 2020. It's a really nice mix (if I do say so myself) of old friends and newcomers. Just to name a few, we'll be hosting:

Tchavolo Schmitt

Paulus Schafer Trio -- with Noah Schafer (bass) and Romino Grunholz (rhythm) and Dominique Paats (accordion)

Gwen Cahue Quartet (with Bastien Ribot, Julien Cattiaux and William Brunard)

Mysterious Travellers: Emmanuel Kassimo (guitar) Laurent Zellers (violin) and Alain Grange (cello)

Matt Flinners will share mandolin duties with Jason Anick and Aaron Weinstein (those last two will also teach violin.)

You can learn more here:

http://djangoinjune.com/artists/

Depending on registration we may invite others. So please register early if you'd like to join us. You get a discount on tuition and it helps us be ready for you. We should be ready to start taking registrations next week!

Happy New Year, everybody. We hope to see you in, oh..about 6 months!

~Andrew

Django in June

Choro Camp New England

geese_com · January 2020

I am so excited that Tchavolo will be there. He is one of my absolute favorites. I am going to try my best to make it this year.

AndrewLawrence · January 2020

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/99796#Comment_99796

Hey Geese! I too, am excited to have Tchavolo coming. It will be fun to have him in the 'hood! He was one of my own earliest influences.

But I hope you won't mind if I use your comment to share my thinking on the whole subject of "big name" artists at Django in June. For many years I resisted the impulse to invite "big names" because it seemed at odds with my primary intention: to make this event about face-to-face interpersonal connections between the attendees and teachers, and between the attendees themselves. Think about it...how many people can any one artist have an intimate connection with? If you have a hundred people coming because Tchavolo (or Angelo, or Romane, or whoever) is coming, how many of those folks are actually going to be satisfied at the end of the event? And why? Is it going to have anything to do with the fact that some big name was here?

Maybe a little. It's fun to see these folks up close, maybe get a hit on their personality, maybe get to see them play in an intimate setting. But for most folks, what makes or breaks the event is all the other connections they make...in jams, at meals, while chilling. That's what the event is designed to facilitate and I hope we get it right more often than not.

Now that DiJ has been around for so long and we've (hopefully) established what we're about, I've loosened up a bit in this regard. We had Angelo here a couple years ago, Romane last year. Like I said, it's fun. But it's not the heart of the event. Which is a good thing because in this genre you run out of big names really fast!

What you don't run out of is good people to study and jam with. That includes really, really skilled artists --most of whom are not so well-known -- and all of us trying to learn a thing or two about the style.

I hope you can make it this year. As with Tchavolo, it would be a pleasure to have you in the mix!

~Andrew

geese_com · February 2020

Is it worth it to come a day early on the Monday the week of Django in June? I have been following plane ticket prices and the price difference between Monday and Tuesday for the same flight is around $200. The flight I am looking at arrives at BDL around noon.

wim · February 2020

Yeah. The Monday night arrival is maybe my favorite one, it's quieter and you can have some more intimate jams with friends you haven't seen for a while on lesser known or unpopular tunes, before all the craziness starts.