Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy 2025
Glen Ridge High School, 287 Forest Avenue, Glen Ridge, NJ 7028
About
Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy offers sketching and comics classes, painting exploration, collage class, puppet making, birdhouse and flower pot decoration, and nature-inspired art. The program includes piano lessons, percussion, woodwind and brass classes, small group brass and trombone lessons, ukulele class, vocal music class, theatre games, and an Art Masterclass on pastels and shading. Students take part in nature study lessons on the local watershed and succulents, and 2025 students visit Lion’s Gate Park in Bloomfield as part of nature study. The program features art and music workshops, jazz performance, and several gallery shows and concerts, including the Emerging Artist Gallery Show, Advanced Concepts Gallery Show, Explorer’s Program End of Camp Gallery Show, End of Camp Concert, and a culminating performance and Art Show for parents, friends, and families.
• Schedule: AM session (9am–12pm), PM session (12–3pm), and full day session (9am–3pm) from July 6–24, 2026
• Price: Use code JUNE10 for a 10% discount before June 18
Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy is a program of the New Jersey Arts Collective and is presented by this non-profit Arts education organization. The New Jersey Arts Collective has been a leader in non-profit Arts education since 2001. Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy has been in residency at Glen Ridge High School, Linden Avenue School, Forest Avenue School and The Women’s Club of Glen Ridge, with satellite locations at the historical Freeman Gardens and Second River Glen in Glen Ridge, NJ.
The program has a low student to teacher ratio of 5 to 1 and includes master teachers, college and high school interns, and high school students in a mentorship program. Music at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seeks to provide all students an opportunity to learn a new instrument in a creative and non-competitive environment, as well as to offer intermediate and advanced students group lessons on their instrument. Visual Arts at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seek to recognize and explore the students’ emerging individuality while developing sensitivity to line, value, shape, color, texture, and movement in their chosen medium. Theatre Arts at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seek to offer the student an understanding of various acting techniques, as well as to expand their repertoire for expression. Nature Study at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy focuses on the local ecosystem including plants, animals, soil and water and seeks to excite a child’s natural curiosity of the natural world.
The Mentorship Program at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seeks to provide current high school freshmen and sophomores with access to the teaching staff’s knowledge and experience and to help them build their own portfolio of work and share their skills with younger students, and these mentorships are unpaid and prepare students for the Internship Program. The Internship Program is for current high school juniors and seniors and college students, and these internships are paid positions that seek to provide the opportunity to assist the teaching staff in preparing lessons, leading classes and developing curriculum of their own. The program includes a culminating performance and Art Show at the end of the last week of camp.
Dr. Kimberly Burja is the Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy Director and co-founder and current Executive Director of the New Jersey Arts Collective. Dr. Burja is a percussionist, composer and educator who has been a music educator for over 25 years teaching in Florida, Texas and New Jersey. She has served as percussion instructor at West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School, Band Director at Passaic Valley High School, and is currently the Band Director at Tenafly Middle School, as well as the K–12 Lead Teacher for Fine and Performing Arts in the Tenafly Public Schools. She was a longtime summer percussion faculty member of the Interlochen Arts Camps in Interlochen, Michigan. Dr. Burja has performed with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Royal Ballet of London, Wide Open Arts, the International Fringe Festival and American Dance Festival. She has studied non-Western musical cultures including a summer residency in Ghana with master drummer and dance Godwin Agbeli, studies of Zimbabwean mbira with Erica Kumdidazora-Azim, and Newari music with Buddhalal Manandhar at the University of Katmandu, Nepal. She holds degrees from the University of North Texas (BA), University of Miami (MM) and Rutgers University (DMA). Dr. Burja has been the Director for the Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy since 2019.
Parent testimonials describe children taking sketching and comics classes, art and music workshops, and piano lessons at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy. One parent from Glen Ridge reports that a child learned new skills and techniques in sketching and comics and enjoyed taking classes with friends. Another parent from Glen Ridge notes that the program is well organized and well run and mentions having it at Freeman Gardens as an added bonus, describing the beauty and serenity of the gardens as very conducive to artistic development and inspiration, and highly recommends the program. A third parent from Glen Ridge reports that a child loved piano lessons, learned a lot in a short period of time with a patient, encouraging and fun teacher, and is eager to return to camp.
Last updated July 6, 2026.
• Schedule: AM session (9am–12pm), PM session (12–3pm), and full day session (9am–3pm) from July 6–24, 2026
• Price: Use code JUNE10 for a 10% discount before June 18
Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy is a program of the New Jersey Arts Collective and is presented by this non-profit Arts education organization. The New Jersey Arts Collective has been a leader in non-profit Arts education since 2001. Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy has been in residency at Glen Ridge High School, Linden Avenue School, Forest Avenue School and The Women’s Club of Glen Ridge, with satellite locations at the historical Freeman Gardens and Second River Glen in Glen Ridge, NJ.
The program has a low student to teacher ratio of 5 to 1 and includes master teachers, college and high school interns, and high school students in a mentorship program. Music at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seeks to provide all students an opportunity to learn a new instrument in a creative and non-competitive environment, as well as to offer intermediate and advanced students group lessons on their instrument. Visual Arts at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seek to recognize and explore the students’ emerging individuality while developing sensitivity to line, value, shape, color, texture, and movement in their chosen medium. Theatre Arts at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seek to offer the student an understanding of various acting techniques, as well as to expand their repertoire for expression. Nature Study at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy focuses on the local ecosystem including plants, animals, soil and water and seeks to excite a child’s natural curiosity of the natural world.
The Mentorship Program at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy seeks to provide current high school freshmen and sophomores with access to the teaching staff’s knowledge and experience and to help them build their own portfolio of work and share their skills with younger students, and these mentorships are unpaid and prepare students for the Internship Program. The Internship Program is for current high school juniors and seniors and college students, and these internships are paid positions that seek to provide the opportunity to assist the teaching staff in preparing lessons, leading classes and developing curriculum of their own. The program includes a culminating performance and Art Show at the end of the last week of camp.
Dr. Kimberly Burja is the Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy Director and co-founder and current Executive Director of the New Jersey Arts Collective. Dr. Burja is a percussionist, composer and educator who has been a music educator for over 25 years teaching in Florida, Texas and New Jersey. She has served as percussion instructor at West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School, Band Director at Passaic Valley High School, and is currently the Band Director at Tenafly Middle School, as well as the K–12 Lead Teacher for Fine and Performing Arts in the Tenafly Public Schools. She was a longtime summer percussion faculty member of the Interlochen Arts Camps in Interlochen, Michigan. Dr. Burja has performed with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Royal Ballet of London, Wide Open Arts, the International Fringe Festival and American Dance Festival. She has studied non-Western musical cultures including a summer residency in Ghana with master drummer and dance Godwin Agbeli, studies of Zimbabwean mbira with Erica Kumdidazora-Azim, and Newari music with Buddhalal Manandhar at the University of Katmandu, Nepal. She holds degrees from the University of North Texas (BA), University of Miami (MM) and Rutgers University (DMA). Dr. Burja has been the Director for the Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy since 2019.
Parent testimonials describe children taking sketching and comics classes, art and music workshops, and piano lessons at Glen Ridge Summer Arts Academy. One parent from Glen Ridge reports that a child learned new skills and techniques in sketching and comics and enjoyed taking classes with friends. Another parent from Glen Ridge notes that the program is well organized and well run and mentions having it at Freeman Gardens as an added bonus, describing the beauty and serenity of the gardens as very conducive to artistic development and inspiration, and highly recommends the program. A third parent from Glen Ridge reports that a child loved piano lessons, learned a lot in a short period of time with a patient, encouraging and fun teacher, and is eager to return to camp.
Last updated July 6, 2026.
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