Learn about Camp

LMC has four performance ensembles…

Concert Band, Orchestra, Choir, and Jazz Band

Students will audition for seating assignments within their ensemble before camp through electronic means. The Camp Registrar will be reaching out to coordinate student’s audition files. Audition information will be distributed in each camper’s acceptance packet and posted online. Auditions are informal and meant to give camp staff an understanding of your comfort zone; don’t sweat your audition at all! No one is getting turned away, and you should not be discouraged for any reason. Try earnestly, and we will place you in a position to best set you up for a comfortable and fun camp experience!

If you are not able to provide a virtual audition, please contact the Camp Registrar to coordinate an in-person audition to occur during registration.

Hear straight from our campers in this video… one week can make a huge impact on your musician!


Camp History

Elizabeth “Ma” Sonier

Elizabeth C. Sonier began teaching in Winsted, CT in 1932. In October of 1944, she began to work on an opportunity for students to work with a nationally-renowned conductor to improve their music skills. Music educators from across Connecticut agreed on the benefits it would provide to the students, but colleagues told her over and over, “There’s no way, Betty. There’s a war on!”

1945 staff member Mary Lane would write:

“Having accomplished that little bit, we sat there on our last morning together, storing up in our memories the beauty of the scene before us. The lapping of the lake seemed to say, “All is well.” A cool breeze tossed the waves, which gurgled under the abandoned raft near the pink laurel bushes. Across the lake, pine trees stretched skyward from a rocky cliff. On our own shore birds echoed back and forth in the gently rustling birches. Then and there we decided that, look where we might, we could not find a more beautiful spot … in which to establish an annual summer music camp. Nor could we find a more appropriate name than the “Laurel Music Camp.” 

A local resident, Walter Davey, had heard the students rehearsing and would row his boat across the lake to listen; Davey was an active Scout leader. In March of 1946, Davey and Sonier gathered with lead Scout Council members Prosper Lavieri and Merle Hildreth, along with Connecticut Music Educator Association officers G. Albert Pearson and Doris Raynor at the Workcoeman Boy Scout Reservation. This would be the new home for Sonier’s dream.

Camp Workcoeman has graciously hosted Laurel Music Camp for most of its existence, but the past four years of camp have been held at Camp Mattatuck in Prospect, CT. Together, the Scouts of Camp Mattatuck and the Laurel Music Camp Staff of today have proven to all alumni of LMC that regardless of location or circumstances of the world, Laurel Music Camp continue in its same spirit for many years to come!