For Immediate Release:
May 26, 2004

Contact:
Ann-Marie Nieves (anieves@giles.com)
Giles Communications
(914) 798-4114

School’s Out for Summer

—Kids Live Out Their MTV Dreams at Rock Camp—

CARLSBAD, CA, May 26, 2004—Not all summer camps are about arts and crafts and swim lessons. This summer, many kids will grab drum sticks instead of goggles and head off to camp with one agenda – making the band. If your son or daughter spends more time playing air guitar or singing into a hairbrush, you may want to consider sending the kids off to band camp.

“We wanted to provide teens and their parents with a healthy cross-section of summer music programs so they could find a camp specific to them,” says Laura Johnson , associate executive director of AMC. “We want kids to continue to pursue their musical interests – whether it’s singing, playing the guitar or drumming – even while they’re not in school. The kids in band camps are not only continuing with music education, they’re able to showcase their creativity and self-expression and live out their MTV dreams.”

For the baby Jaggers and Joplins, it’s all rock and roll. Girls Rock Camp! in Portland, OR; Camp Jam Atlanta; and DayJams, which has programs in Alexandria; Ann Arbor; Baltimore; Chicago; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Manhattan; Boston; Purchase, NY; and Rockville, NY, provide experiences like no other. Each day is packed with instruction by top music teachers who are often former rockers themselves. Campers get to join a band of like-minded musicians, write and record an original song and perform it live, maybe even make a music video.

For the parents afraid of the ear-numbing noise created by their newly-formed rock children, consider this: active music making has been shown to correlate with better reading ability and math scores and lower incidence of drug use and antisocial behavior among teenagers. Students with course work and experience in music performance and music appreciation score higher on the SAT. In one study, students in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation.

"By experiencing success - writing an original song, performing it at our concert and recording a CD - the students gain a sense of accomplishment. The increased self-esteem resulting from this accomplishment changes their lives. It also spurs them on to continue to develop their musical talents. They've even been known to practice without being asked,” says David Smolover, co-founder of DayJams.

For further information on band camps, please visit, www.dayjams.com, www.girlsrockcamp.org and www.campjamatlanta.com.

The American Music Conference is a national non-profit educational association dedicated to promoting the importance of music, music-making and music education to the general public. For more information, visit www.amc-music.org.