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By MARY THERESE BIEBEL; Times Leader Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 22, 1997     Page: 1C

Back home in New York City, 16-year-old Tamara Plummer had the stamina to
lug her bassoon across town every day, changing trains to reach LaGuardia High
School for the Arts.
   
But the young musician didn’t have the confidence to play, out loud and
strong, with an audience focused on her every note.
    That changed when Plummer came to Encore Music Camp, an intensive summer
program at Wilkes University. Here teachers have challenged her to excel, and
she recently played her first bassoon solo.
   
“Back home they’d give me five months to learn something. Here they just
say, `Hey, play this piece,”‘ Plummer says, her face dimpling as she smiles.
“I love the bassoon.”
   
Indeed, it’s understood that all of the close to 300 students who attend
Encore Music Camp for two to six weeks are happiest when working at their art.
Some seem content to enter a world where they exist alone with their music.
   
“I try to block everything out and focus on what I’m doing,” says
14-year-old clarinetist Simone Thomas, also from New York.
   
Others, like Darren Frederick, are nourished by audience response.
   
Frederick, 15, a clarinet player and boy soprano, recently sang a solo,
“Somewhere Out There” for other Encore Campers. “He was getting cheers and
screams, marriage proposals,” teased Jim Ruck, who is handling public
relations for the camp this summer.
   
The Encore camp is composed of young performers from across the country,
primarily along the Eastern seaboard, said camp director Nancy Sanderson.
About 40 percent are area residents.
   
The young musicians interviewed for this article all live in New York City,
where they listen to every kind of music from the Beethoven to the rap/rhythm
and blues group the Fugees. They also participate in the Music Advancement
Program at the Julliard School, designed to help students from
African-American, Latino and Native American communities explore classical
music.
   
The classics are a favorite of 17-year-old Janetha Philbert’s. She plays
the bassoon and sings in several languages.
   
She’s working on an operatic piece, “Lasciatemi Morire,” which means “Let
me die” and refers to a woman forsaken by her lover.
   
“She’d rather die. Why did he do this to her?” Philbert translates from the
Italian. “I say it a few times. I have to feel her pain and project it through
the way I perform.”
   
Loving music as they do, the Encore Music Camp crowd says it will always be
part of their lives, but not necessarily a full-time career.
   
Thomas says she considers every profession from biochemistry and psychiatry
to pediatrics and law.
   
Philbert would like to become a politician.
   
Frederick doesn’t know what he’ll do, but says, “I’d like to give back to
the arts because they need a lot of money.”
   
In the meantime, Plummer looks at music as a ticket to a scholarship.
   
“My teacher told me about a couple colleges that need bassoonists,” she
said.
   
This Week’s Concert Schedule Wednesday, 8 p.m., Potpourri Recital Friday, 8
p.m., Chamber music evening: small ensembles, chamber orchestra
   
Saturday, 3 p.m., Lab jazz, concert orchestra, jazz singer, concert band.
   
Saturday, 8 p.m., Men’s chorus, chamber singers, symphony orchestra.
   
Sunday, 3 p.m., Wind ensemble, Encore chorus, jazz band
   
Encore Music Camp concerts are open to the public, free of charge. They are
held in the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts. Gala closing
concerts will be held at 8 p.m. Aug. 8-9.
   
TIMES LEADER/DON CAREY
   
Tamara Plummer, 16, plays the bassoon at Encore Music Camp at Wilkes
University.