I first heard about Lark Camp in 2006 through friends who had been attending the camp for several years. Dan, Cassandra, and Kent Auerbach, and I all share a deep love of Celtic music. The Auerbachs invited me to share a cabin with them. I browsed the website and was intrigued by the breadth of musical traditions from around the world. Lark Camp takes place the first week of August in Mendocino Woodlands State Park, a rustic, three-camp facility about four hours north of San Francisco and built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The 700 acres of redwoods, ferns, glades, and streams provide a beautiful and tranquil, yet acoustically alive, setting.

Lark may just be the adult version of a musical petting zoo, where one can explore music making in an amazing variety of styles and traditions. It was hard to choose from so many musical activities, but there were no wrong or bad choices. In most workshops, emphasis is placed on learning tunes by ear, bit by bit, and not by written music. The highly interactive and casual setting is more open than a typical master class. I was able to safely leave my instruments, laptop, camera, and camcorder; in the history of Lark there has never been a stolen instrument.

But Lark is much more than workshops. People drift and mingle, quickly forming interesting ensembles. Evenings showcase participants performing what they’ve learned in workshops, plus dances and jam sessions. I was surprised by how little sleep we all could get by on after late-night Irish jams.

This was our home for the next eight days, together with more than 700 musicians from around the world, all living in cabins, tents, or vans in three camps organized by musical tradition and geography and connected by shuttle buses.

In the morning, we would take a short hike to the dining hall, where we were greeted by kitchen staff singing madrigals as they prepared and served our breakfast—the songs were unbeatable sustenance for the soul. The Lark cuisine was tasty and nutritious with vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore selections and never the same meal twice.

After eating, I attended one-hour workshops between nine and six, choosing a number of Irish sessions (fiddle, singing, mandolin, octave mandolin, bodhran—the Irish frame drum), plus English country dance, Renaissance rounds, and Swedish fiddle tunes. I also listened to new genres, including Andes mountains music, Bulgarian and Serbian music, and Greek fiddling. The only classical music was a fun orchestral performance of “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” during a Mozart at Midnight program.

I have had nine years of classical violin lessons followed by years of orchestras and other ensembles. Lark Camp provided me with ear training and other long-term musical benefits, stimulating my interest in other musical instruments and styles. I bought a bodhran (an Irish drum) and months later, an octave mandolin, improving my rhythm and sense of harmony. Learning these outside of Lark Camp would have been much more difficult and slower, and certainly less fun. The exposure to so many diverse musical traditions gave me a perspective on the possibilities of musical growth and expression, very refreshing to this middle-aged physician.

In 2009, I returned to Lark Camp—many of the faculty and participants also had returned. I realized that Lark is a special social network, a welcoming family for encouraging musicians to grow and develop their uniqueness. This past year, the camp orchestra performed Ravel’s “Bolero” and also the music for a silent Betty Boop cartoon. I fondly recall sharing a solo passage with an accordionist. And I enjoyed reconnecting with teachers in the same Celtic classes, but also had great fun exploring a totally unfamiliar genre, Arabic singing and violin, with its exquisitely expressive melodies in new quarter-tone scales, and also trying the nyckelharpe.

I look forward to returning—hopefully next time I’ll introduce my teenagers to one of the best experiences in life.

Learn more at LarkCamp.com.