At Miles of Music, we value:

• creativity
• collaboration
• joy
• connection
• ACCESSIBILITY
• belonging

we create events, experiences & opportunities that:

• Spark inspiration
• Foster the aural passing-on of living musical traditions
• Support artists wherever they are in their personal and professional journeys
• Elevate the level of artists’ work through individual learning and collaborative creation
• Are inclusive and safe environments for learning, sharing, and growing FOR ALL PEOPLE
• Promote a sense of belonging
• Diversify the MILES OF MUSIC community IN MANY WAYS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO RACE, CLASS, AGE, ABILITY, AND VARIETY OF MUSICAL EXPRESSION. WE DO THIS for OUR own enrichment, in pursuit of living our values, and TO influencE the SOCIAL AND artistic communities in which we all participate.

The story of Miles of Music:

Hi! We’re Kristin Andreassen & Laura Cortese, founding co-directors of Miles of Music. We’re both award-winning songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, percussive dancers and old friends with musical roots stretching from fiddle folk to indie rock. Another thing we have in common is that we were fortunate enough to have encountered all-ages music camps along our artistic path. “One day,” we thought, “we might get to create a camp of our own…”.

Fast forward to 2009, when we were invited to Three Mile Island as a part of a writing retreat for Boston-based songwriters. (We now live in Nashville (Kristin) and Belgium (Laura), but at the time we were both in Boston…). The retreat was convened by two of our mutual musical heroes, Rose Polenzani & Dinty Child — who happens to be both a stellar songwriter and the off-season manager of Three Mile Island on Lake Winnipesaukee.

Dinty tells the story of how we arrived at the retreat at different times and yet, each stepped onto the dock and immediately said more or less the same thing — “Wow, this place would be perfect…” Together with Dinty, we worked on a proposal to start an all-comers’ music camp on the island the following year.

These days, Miles of Music has grown to something bigger and more profound than anything this crew of three people could have imagined. We’ve become a real community, with a palpable sense of ownership from hundreds of people who have attended our events, and at least a dozen people who do substantial work throughout the year to make these gatherings possible.

If you read our “2023 Year in Review” letter (linked above), you’ll learn about a couple of new camper-driven projects including the Imperfectionist Song Society and a budding on-line workshop series.

We are a mission-driven organization that functions as a non-profit (we now partner with a fiscal sponsor called Fractured Atlas in order to accept and provide receipts for tax-deductible donations). In 2015, we identified diversity, equity and inclusion as a priority in our continued growth, and most of our fundraising is geared toward pursuing that work in its many forms.

In 2022, we started to look in earnest at the long-term sustainability of Miles of Music as an organization — beyond the specific personalities of the people who run it now. We’ve engaged professional and volunteer help to facilitate and inform this work, and we’ll be excited to share our work here as we go.

Please continue to explore our web site to learn about our community and how you can be part of it!

With love,
The Miles of Music Team, including…

Kristin Andreassen & Laura Cortese
Founding Co-Directors of Miles of Music & Artistic Directors of Island Camp

Allie Chipkin, Louis Apollon & Mike Shapiro
Founding Co-Directors of the Imperfectionist Song Society

Lauren Balthrop
Director of Admin

Clara Baker
Social Media Maven

& many more…