Former music lecturer Maria Vraka believes that it shouldn’t be a privilege for children to learn music-making. Knowing how music is proven to bring children significant benefits, she says, “it should be a right for all children and an everyday life habit.”
To this end, the Maria Vraka Music Academy, which has largely grown because of a community of parents who have encouraged Maria’s music groups and private tuition over the last ten years, offers holiday camps for children to develop skills in making music.
There are four music camps running over the summer at The Winch in Winchester Road. The July Piano Camp is already full but there are still places available on the 3-day Piano Camp from 17-19 August.
The camp is for kids aged 6-10 years who, whether beginners or experienced, have an interest in playing piano. This year a group of four to six children will learn how to deconstruct and construct a score from the famous musicals The Lion King, Mary Poppins and Matilda.
Maria wants the children to be inspired as they work together towards a final performance, older children often helping and encouraging the smaller ones.
“It’s all about cultivating the artist in them,” says Maria, who employs two teachers and an assistant for each of the Summer Piano Camps, so that the children have plenty of individual attention.
The children also do arts and crafts such as making masks, go to nearby Swiss Cottage Library for research and enjoy the small park adjacent to The Winch.
The three-day Film Music Camp from 3-5 August is for kids aged 8-13 years and run by the award-winning film composer Effie Ratsou. In this camp, children learn how to use software to create a score, working alone or in pairs to compose a musical piece for a short clip, video animation or film scene. Maria describes the camp as more technical, adding that “it teaches the principles of how music can be interpreted in a visual way.”
For children who need to take their Grade 5 theory, the Music Theory Camp from 24-28 August is an intensive five-day workshop for six to eight children. Maria is proud of how her teachers – many of them graduates from big conservatories such as the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall – can condense months of learning into five days.
The Maria Vraka Foundation
Interviewing Maria Vraka, originally from Greece, she comes across as optimistic and big-hearted. In 2025 she co-founded the Maria Vraka Foundation. One of its flagship initiatives, called First Notes, provides expectant and new mothers with bags containing a baby’s first musical instrument, specially curated music lists to encourage relaxation and emotional connection, a reflective diary, detailed guidance booklet and a soft scarf. This year thanks to generous donations the foundation can gift 100 of these bags.
Lily Petrova, co-founder of the Foundation, is also leading a major initiative called Rescuing Pianos. The project focuses on rehoming grand pianos and creating music hubs which offer opportunities for learning, employment and performance.
In September the Maria Vraka Music Academy will be moving to larger premises in Belsize Park and we wish Maria, Lily and their team all the best, as they continue to nurture children who may be the musicians of the future.
