IN JUNE 2011, Miles of Music started as a week-long all-ages summer camp on a tiny island in New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. We call that event Island Camp, and it’s been selling out since the second year..

The Island is small, so — until now — all of our expansion has happened in other spaces.  We’ve hosted in-person workshops (New York and Boston in the early days, and now in Western Maryland…). And we’ve supported on-line gatherings like The Imperfectionist Song Society and February’s Reprise! Festival of Online Workshops.

The big news for 2026 is that we’re launching a new in-person event on the Island! The Miles of Music Family Reunion is open to the many hundreds of people who have experienced a Miles of Music event over the years.

Thematically, Miles of Music is about timeless traditional music and modern songwriting.

My co-founder Laura Cortese and I became friends partly through the “fiddle camp” scene before finding our way to the “songwriting camp” scene. As multi-instrumentalists, stepdancers, and touring ensemble players, we were deeply influenced by our experience as campers — and eventually as teachers — at both kinds of gatherings. One day we said to each other, “Where is the camp that combines these worlds?!”

So that’s what Miles of Music was made to do. We hold space for people who want to jam, sing old songs in harmony, dance, or play tunes for dancers. We also create opportunities for people who want to write, co-write, or just get better at arranging and performing their own songs. And we especially value the place in between — where people explore instruments and ideas that feel like new territory.

One things that sets Miles of Music apart is that we are and have always been driven entirely by professional working artists. Even our connection to Three Mile Island (where Island Camp takes place) was forged through our friend Dinty Child, who happens to serve as both off-season Island maintenance man and as a touring musician of high regard. So when Laura stepped back as Co-Director in 2024, we had already built an extraordinary team of artists who were ready to carry it forward.

We — the people behind MoM today — invest our creative energy in this project not as a “job” but out of a shared belief that it’s important and beautiful “work.” What we get back as organizers is similar to what we’re hoping to give — creativity, collaboration, and connection.

What’s clear is that Miles of Music has now become something bigger and more profound than anything we founders could have imagined. This is a real community, with a buzzing WhatsApp group chat and a palpable sense of ownership from hundreds of people who have attended our events.

As a mission-driven organization, we function as a non-profit. In 2015, we identified diversity, equity and inclusion as a priority, and most of our fundraising is geared toward pursuing that work in its many forms.

Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about Miles of Music.

If you’d like to lend a hand, support our work here.

And please consider joining us at one of our upcoming events!

With Love,

Kristin Andreassen
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Miles of Music

Miles of Music TeaM

Here are some of the artists who give their time and talents to Miles of Music throughout the year.

We’d also like to acknowledge our corporate sponsors, individual donors, and volunteers — including the members of our anonymous Merit & Community Discount Committee. They help us live up to our goals and values throughout our work.

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.