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The 2025 Cordova Music Campers square dancing. Photo by Jacqueline Adams
The Cordova Music Camp is coming to a close on Friday, with musicians both novel and experienced filling the streets with music.
Adult campers and music instructors will be playing their instruments on Main Street from noon to 1 p.m. today, July 18, to showcase their skills.
The Cordova Music Camp, a nonprofit founded by Cordovan Belle Mickelson, offers both kids and adults the opportunity to explore traditional acoustic music styles. The camp, scheduled July 14-18 this year, is taught by an array of Alaska and out-of-state musicians. One of this year’s most notable musician instructors was Marshall Hawkins, a stand-up bassist for the Miles Davis Jazz Band, who celebrated his 86th birthday in Cordova on Monday.
Mickelson said the most special part about the camp is how kids inspire other kids.
“Now some of the campers that grew up in the camps are running the camp,” she said. “Cordovans who have moved away are bringing their kids and grandkids back for this incredible week of the fun and laughter that goes with the music.”
Mickelson – who started playing the fiddle when she was 10 years old, according to her online bio – started the camp in 1995 because of her passion for teaching music. She’s been playing in old time bluegrass bands since 1975.
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Mickelson is also now the director of Dancing With The Spirit, a project to connect music and dance to remote Native villages and towns across Alaska – as well as some parts of Hawai’i, Canada, New York, and the Navajo Indian Reservation in the southwestern United States. She’s also a local Cordova Episcopal priest, and teaches an extracurricular acoustic music program for the Cordova School District.
The Cordova Music Camp entails both children’s and adults’ classes throughout the week. Campers have the option to choose between five music classes each afternoon.
Registration fees for the adult classes – which this year cost $150 for the full week or $40 per class – go toward the children’s camp scholarship fund. According to the Cordova Music Camp’s website, no camper is turned away due to inability to pay.
The camp is always scheduled for mid-July, the week before Copper River Salmon Jam.
Campers play in their combined classes during the 2025 Cordova Music Camp. Photo by Jacqueline Adams
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