Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp

International Exchange

Blue Lake hosts international exchange students in the arts as well as organizing several ensembles of American students to travel to Europe and perform each year. These ensembles include, but are not limited to, concert band, jazz band, orchestra, and choir. These exchanges serve to expose students to other cultures and have been cited as “outstanding representatives of the United States”. The camp has also initiated such experiments in multi-cultural cooperation as the Blue Lake in Bavaria concert band which was formed out of a mixture of American and European junior and senior high school students to rehearse and perform together over the course of a month.

Leonard Falcone

Prior to the founding of Blue Lake, Leonard Falcone, baritone virtuoso and Director of Bands at Michigan State University, had conducted many Youth Music at Michigan State summer camps in conjunction with, and support of, the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association. At the urging of Fritz Stansell, Falcone shifted his focus to aiding the program at Blue Lake and became a regular staff member/artist in residence. Falcone would be joined later by other notables of the music education and concert band world, such as composers John Barnes Chance and Václav Nelhýbel.
Following Falcone's death in 1985, Blue Lake became home to the new Leonard Falcone International Tuba and Euphonium Festival and competition created by his students in his memory and held at Blue Lake every year. This has become a significant annual event in the international tuba and euphonium community and  is the leading American venue for these instruments.