Canadian Amateur Musicians/Musiciens Amateurs du Canada is a nonprofit organization supporting amateur music making at all ages and levels. It is commonly known by its acronym, CAMMAC.
CAMMAC runs two summer music centres (CAMMAC Lake MacDonald in the Laurentian mountains northwest of Montreal, Quebec and the CAMMAC Ontario Music Centre (renamed Lake Field Music[1] in 2010) at the Lakefield College School in the Kawartha Lakes area of Ontario). CAMMAC also holds regional activities year-round in Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City, Nova Scotia and Ottawa-Gatineau. The Music Centres offer individual weeks of classes and music-making opportunities for adults and children, nine summer weeks at Lake MacDonald and in different years two or three weeks at the Lake Field Music in Lakefield. At the music centres, the different weeks emphasize different kinds of music. The regions support a variety of music-making, including, in different regions, monthly choral readings, orchestral performances, and specialized groups such as madrigal singing, jazz band, chamber music workshops and recorder ensembles. The Montréal region, which is the largest by membership, organizes a regularly rehearsing amateur orchestra.
CAMMAC was founded in 1953 by George and Carl Little, with their wives, Madeleine and Frances. Other important founding members were Mario Duschenes, who taught recorder for many years; and Walter and Otto Joachim. Canadian baritone and educator Jan Simons was general director from 1969 to 1990, and taught at the Lake MacDonald centre for 50 years. While CAMMAC's focus has been amateur music making, a number of alumni have gone on to professional careers in music, in some cases coming back as teachers.