I had a great time in Nagano last weekend at the Sugiyama Brass Camp. I was there to do a workshop on improvisation but, I had an opportunity to meet lot of nice people (about 70 students), eat a lot of delicious Nagano food and enjoy the mountains. I was amazed to see people coming to the camp from all over Japan. Players of all ages and levels of ability together enjoying playing brass instruments, practicing and ensemble playing. The mountain area near Ueda station looks exactly like the Canaan Valley area near my hometown in West Virginia.
It was a lot of fun doing the improvisation workshop. A little difficult delivering that kind of message to 70 people of all levels at the same time. Hopefully, I was able to give everybody a little something that they can use in the coming weeks and months.
If anyone has any questions, they can ask me on this blog or just send me an email. It will be interesting to see the growth of some of the students over the next year.