The origins and development of music camps in Spain

Abstract

This paper delves with music camps, a non-formal educational approach that combines leisure activities with music, currently taking about 2000 students in Spain. Its origin is in the school camps, resulting from the combination of Rousseau's thought on education based on experience with social changes brought about by the industrial revolution, giving as a result the first organized school camps in Switzerland in the late 19th Century, with a hygienist target. Years later that experience came to Spain through the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, expanding rapidly through the rest of the country. In Catalonia, because of the importance that choral societies and their respective hiking groups had there, many colonies were organized from the choruses, including Cantarelles d'estiu by l'Orfeo Lleidatà in 1968, being the first music camp in Spain. Later this musical educational activity has spread virtually throughout the country. Their organizational characteristics, as well as their educational content, allow us to establish the intrinsic characteristics of these music camps presented in this work.