Camarillo music lover trumpets workshops

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers INSPIRED- Lynnea Mitchell, a Camarillo resident, is planning a weeklong summer workshop this month in Ventura for middle and high school students who play brass instruments and are serious about improving their skills. She holds a photo of her father, Bob Barnum, who died in 2006. He was a longtime music teacher. Lynnea Mitchell's lifelong love of music is something she wants to pass on to the next generation.

Mitchell, a Camarillo resident, is planning a weeklong summer workshop this month in Ventura for middle and high school students who play brass instruments and are serious about improving their skills. The instructors are trumpet player Chris Tedesco, whose credits include playing with the Glenn Miller Band and for numerous movies and TV shows, and internationally renowned tuba soloist Mel Culbertson, who performs and teaches at conservatories in Europe.

Mitchell, a longtime friend of Culbertson's, a Ventura native, wants to expose local children to his expertise. Mitchell's father, Bob Barnum, was one of Culbertson's early music teachers and, as Mitchell tells it, was instrumental in Culbertson's decision to play the tuba. Barnum needed a tuba player and asked his class of seventh-graders who would volunteer; 12-year-old Culbertson raised his hand, Mitchell said.

Barnum and Culbertson kept in touch until Barnum's death in 2006.

Mitchell has also enlisted the help of Scott Weiss. Their fathers were good friends and were Culbertson's former music teachers. Mitchell and Weiss were schoolmates and played in their high school band together.

The three musicians recently reconnected after about four decades for a June tribute concert for Weiss' father, Larry Weiss, who retired after 34 years of conducting the Ventura County Concert Band. Culbertson flew in from Europe to perform and surprise Larry Weiss, his former high school music teacher.

Since then, the three friends began talking about their love of music and what they could do to preserve music education for the next generation. Culbertson offered his expertise and Weiss his professional support as a certified public accountant as well as the cooperation of his nonprofit Music 4 Kids, which sponsors free music lessons for children at a Ventura youth club; and the summer workshop was born.

"We love working with kids, and we don't want to see music die," said Mitchell, an office manager who's spearheading the effort to get the workshop off the ground. "Music is so culturally universal. . . . It's something we all share."

"Music is one of the most important things in my life," said Weiss, who's also a professional trumpet player. "I just can't imagine life without music. . . . It's always been a part of my life."

Mitchell said their ultimate goal is to grow worldclass musicians here in Ventura County at a year-round music school, known as the Mel Culbertson Coastal Brass Academy, "that would be the envy of anyone."

"This is the start of something really, really big we want to do," Mitchell said. "We think that my dad would be really proud."

But so far no students have signed up for the workshop. Mitchell admitted she notified high school band directors about the workshop late in the year, in June, when they're occupied with the end of the school year.

But she still wants the word out and is determined the workshop will run even if only one student shows up.

"I don't want to cancel it. . . . I just don't," Mitchell said.

The weeklong workshop is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., July 21 through 26. The entire workshop costs $500, or students can pay $125 for a oneday session. Mitchell said the hours and fees are flexible, however.

"We'll try to accommodate anyone as best we can," she added.

For more information about the summer workshop, call Mitchell at (805) 509-6051.