About CYMC
Founded as a summer retreat for the Vancouver Junior Symphony, the Comox Valley Youth Music Centre (CYMC) is now in its 40th year and continues as British Columbia’s longest running music camp. Our mandate, to provide musical improvement and advancement to music students, is achieved primarily with the operation of the CYMC International Summer Youth Music School and Festival, a school for aspiring instrumentalists, singers and actors.
The programs offer training in all music disciplines from beginning musical studies to advanced solo, orchestral, chamber music, jazz, percussion, voice and dance. CYMC maintains an open admissions policy. The school’s festival component offers exciting concerts, recitals and theatre productions. Celebrated international artists appear in concert and join the CYMC Festival Orchestra and the CYMC Pacific Jazz Ensemble in an outstanding series of concerts.
The summer school runs for four to six weeks. Students from across BC, Canada, USA, Europe and Asia come to the Comox Valley to experience what for many, is an important step in their musical and professional development, and often at key moments of musical decision making in their lives. Practicing professional musicians across Canada and internationally have received training and/or instructed at CYMC.
The experience the students have at CYMC changes their lives. They achieve new musical goals; they interact and exchange musical ideas. They make life long friendships. Through their experience at CYMC they receive the foundation on which to become leaders in their communities and beyond. The stunning beauty of this unique West Coast destination, in itself, inspires all things creative. The superb instruction and very exciting performance component through the CYMC Festival of Summer Sounds, makes this summer music camp a unique.
The success of a program such as CYMC’s is often measured by the success of its students in later life. After 40 years, it would be difficult to believe that we didn’t have some wonderful treasures among our alumni. The depth of excellence and degree of diversity in the alumni is, nonetheless, surprising. Among its former students, we can count the leaders in all fields of musical performance, musical education, and musical production and promotion, please take a moment to visit our alumni page for more detail...
But this is not the sole measure of success for CYMC. It has always been a goal of CYMC to provide the opportunity for students to gather together and experience the joy of a musically challenging community of faculty and students. Whether or not such experiences lead to careers in music, they most definitely provide a valid and worthwhile experience that enhances the enjoyment of life throughout our graduates’ lives.