THIS SONG IS DEDICATED TO THE BLUE LAKE FINE ARTS CAMP IN TWIN LAKE, MICHIGAN. IT WAS WRITTEN BY THE LATE JOHN BARNES CHANCE IN 1971. ONE YEAR LATER, MR. CHANCE WAS TRAGICALLY ELECTROCUTED. PERFORMED BY THE 1977 NORTH DAKOTA ST. UNIV. GOLD STAR BAND.
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Story behind the song
Written in 1971 and dedicated to the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp of Twin Lake, Michigan.
Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, a summer school of the arts located on a 1,300 acre campus in Michigan’s Manistee National Forest, offers fine arts education for all ages. Each summer, the principal camp program annually serves more than 5,300 gifted elementary, junior high, and high school students with diverse programs in music, art, dance, and drama while offering more than 175 performances during its Summer Arts Festival. Blue Lake also operates a widely acclaimed International Exchange Program and two public radio stations. Since its inception in 1966, Blue Lake has provided cultural enrichment to more than 300,000 gifted students and countless concert-goers.
John Barnes Chance (November 20, 1932–August 16, 1972) was a composer, born in Beaumont, Texas. Chance studied composition with Clifton Williams at the University of Texas, Austin, and is best known for his concert band works, which include Variations on a Korean Folk Song, Incantation and Dance, and Blue Lake Overture. Many of his works are written for young musicians, particularly those written between 1960 and 1962, when he was composer-in-residence in the Greensboro, North Carolina public school system--specifically at Greensboro Senior High School (now Grimsley Senior High School) under the supervision of Herbert Hazelman--as part of the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project.
Before he became a full-time composer, Chance played timpani with the Austin Symphony and later was an arranger for the Fourth and Eighth U.S. Army bands. Chance taught at the University of Kentucky from 1966 until his death in 1972. On August 16th, Chance was airing a tent in his garden when a metal pole contacted an electrified fence used to confine his dogs. Chance was accidentally electrocuted and died at 12:40pm at Central Baptist Hospital from cardiac arrest. He and his wife Linda had two children.