A sincere thanks to everyone who took part in our OliveLand Summer Camp with Christopher Norton from June 21 to 23, 2013. Thanks for all the local teachers, parents and students who participated in the camp. Special thanks to our team of volunteers Theordore Chau, Kristina Lee, Jacky Chan, Eric Zhu, Naomi Chau, Vince and Steve Yun, Vivian Yuen, Frances Lau, Kerry Itami, Janae Chan, Ken Zhu, Sterling Yun, Ray and Maria Keasey and Bellewood Presbyterian Church for letting us use your wonderful place for Chris Norton on the keys gala concert.

Thank you Chris for coming here and spent your milestone 60th birthday with us. We are so honored to have you here on your special day.

We had around 145 students number participating in Improv. sessions, masterclasses and workshops in different levels ages from 4 to 19. We truly enjoyed the Going Vertical Fun Box in which students learnt to use the 7th, 9th, 11 and 13th plus the inversions and exteneded chords. It's our big treat to be able to use them on the spot and jam along to Chris's music! The Rhythm Mania Fun Box is always popular. We did them in three levels from the basic chord progressions to regonizing styles of 8 beat rock, Cha Cha, Latin, Ballads, Rock and Glenn Miller's. We also enjoyed the Fun Box Composing Tricks and Tips. We loved rhyming the words to rhythms, write music with chord patterns, create rhythm base, create melodies to words and lots more. It's truly inspiring to see how a live composer walk us through the process of writing music. Last but not least, the Fun Box Listen Up got the greatest exciting response from students. The sheer joy of running the fingers through scales patterns, inversions, mixolydian patterns, 7th chords with the whole class together was truly a scene we'd never forget. We all had sweats catching up with the speed of Chris in the jam session! Chris also spent time to share his new workshop of Pop Techniques in Traditional Piano Teaching to 8 local teachers. We sure learnt a lot from his talk.

*Chris's message at video below

Comments after the camp:

'I really likes the way he teaches, it's really fun'

'I love all the songs in Rhythm Mania.'

'I love using Mixolydian scale to compose, I already wrote 3 songs after the camp'

'Christopher Norton's Piano Camp at Oliveland was an awesome weekend filled with fun learning, camaraderie and new visions for making music. It's not everyday that you see a room full of piano students totally focused and dedicated in learning things like second inversion of dominant seventh chords and mixolydian modes. It was inspiring to see the students challenging themselves to soak in all that Chris had to offer to them while having great fun. My students who participated in the camp came out with such musical high, but probably not as much as the musical high I was on by watching students learn how to find their own voice in creating music. Chris was ever so kind and gracious with all the participants and I am so grateful to Oliveland for offering opportunities like this,'

'My son just could not put down the APP book, he plays all the songs in the book. He esp. loves the songs with the backing tracks.'

'The camp is very entertaining!'

"I love that I could play cool music together with many other kids."

"I love everything about the camp! Especially eating together upstairs, talking and reading...'

'I love the chance to play all the chords and their inversions in such fun ways.'

'When are you coming back, Chris?'