This week:

The weather, Amanda Keil’s recital, Manhattan Wind Ensemble, and an important administrative update.

Rehearsal on Monday

Please check out the rehearsal plan for Monday evening at 7:30 pm at TMH.

We are watching the storm brewing Monday night into Tuesday. Right now it looks like rain Monday evening, changing to snow after midnight into Tuesday morning. Please be sure to check your email again on Monday after 3:00 pm for a final reconfirmation about Monday’s rehearsal.

There is no rehearsal on March 20 (TMH is not available, and I will be visiting my mother for her 94th birthday). We are looking at holding sectionals at TMH and Irvington Presbyterian Church on March 27. Details will be discussed on Monday.

Important update regarding attendance and personnel

Effective immediately, David Church will be taking a leave from his personnel duties, for personal reasons. David is safe and secure, but he asks for privacy for the time being, so he can concentrate on supporting his family. At this time, he has asked me to appoint another member to handle the personnel duties, but he plans to continue to play contrabass clarinet for the May concert.
I have appointed Katherine Filatov, clarinet, to take over David’s duties as Interim Personnel Manager until further notice. I am extremely grateful to Katherine for accepting this appointment. All members should use our Google absence form to log advance notice absences, or email//text/call her (at the email/phone sent by email) to report absences and other personnel-related matters within 24 hours of a rehearsal/performance. Please be patient during this transition period and join me in supporting both David and Katherine.

Performances of note

As announced last week, our very own Amanda Keil, horn, will step onto the stage as soprano soloist for Franz Schubert’s epic song cycle, Winterreise, this afternoon at 2:00 pm. You can catch this performance of 24 of Schubert’s most beautiful art songs at 2:00 pm at Lehman College Recital Hall, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, in the Bronx.

A group of players from the Manhattan Wind Ensemble attended our November concert, along with their conductor, Sarah Fernánez. They stayed afterwards to chat and I really appreciated their support. They have their next concert performance, Revolution Rising, tonight at 8:00 pm at the Salvation Army Centennial Memorial Temple, 120 West 14th Street in Manhattan. They have also been invited to perform for the Boston Instrumental Festival at Boston Symphony Hall on Sunday, March 19 at 2:00 pm. If you’re available, please consider attending to support this fine ensemble.

Exciting Updates

Thanks to everyone who attended the Zoom last Monday. From news about upcoming rehearsals to our new album release, and a concert featuring some of our members on Sunday, I’ve got plenty of updates to share.

Next Rehearsal: Monday, March 6

We’re gearing up for our next rehearsal, which will take place on Monday, March 6 at 7:30 pm on the stage at TMH. And we really expect it to happen this time! During this rehearsal, we’ll be reading through the next cycle’s program. We ask that you please arrive 10 minutes earlier than usual so that you can exchange your winter parts for your spring parts. We want to ensure that we make the most of our rehearsal time, so please plan your travel time prior to arrival. If you are reading from a tablet, find the parts in this Google Drive folder.

Bandcamp Release: Check Out Our Four Albums!

We’re so proud of our four albums available on our Bandcamp site! Click the graphic to visit our page. We encourage you to share the site with friends and family and support our fund-raising efforts by purchasing our new albums. We hope you enjoy the music and appreciate your support.

Westchester Chamber Soloists Concert on Sunday, March 5

Several of our WSW members will be performing in the next Westchester Chamber Soloists concert on Sunday, March 5 at 3:00 pm in Reising Auditorium at Sarah Lawrence College. Member performers include: Marge Hone, Ian Vlahoviç, Gina Serafin, Stan Serafin, Kelly Oram, and frequent flyer sub player Susan DeCamp, among others. See the flyer for more information. We’re proud of our members and look forward to hearing them perform!

Buffet R13 Eb Clarinet for sale

West Point soloist (Villa-Lobos Concerto Grosso) and Maslanka Symphony No. 4 clinician, Manny Ramos, is selling his Buffet Eb clarinet. Melanie Wong recently worked on it before her departure from NYC. Manny is asking $2500, but the price is negotiable.

Please contact me for Manny’s contact info if you or one of your students is interested.

It’s another big week ahead. Thank you for your continued participation and support!

Spring cycle begins Monday at 7:30 pm at TMH

We will gather on Monday to reflect on the February 12 concert and read through the new program for May 13. Nancy Mattson will have envelopes prepared with the new parts. Please arrive 10 minutes earlier than usual to swap out your old music for your new parts.

Weather on Monday

We are watching the storm predicted for Monday and Monday evening. Please stay close to your email inboxes and watch for an update email by 3:00 pm Monday afternoon.

Personnel for spring cycle

We are a little short-handed for this next concert, because of concert date conflicts. We still need these players:

• For the full ensemble – two Bb clarinets (all rehearsals)
• For the Kalinnikov antiphonal brass choirs – one horn, one euphonium, one trombone (dress and concert only)

Please contact David if you have recommendations to pass along.

Our Bandcamp recording library just quadrupled!

Due to the outstanding talents of Rob LaPorta (recording engineer) and Richard Price (producer), and amazing efforts by Eric Milkie (licensing, web integration) and Rebecca Weissman (album cover art), we now have four concert albums available for downstreaming review and purchase on our Bandcamp page. We just added these three concert albums: Tribute to Grainger (November 2021), Desert Sage (November 2022), and Lift Every Voice (February 2023). Our first album published to Bandcamp, Caramoor 2022, is also listed and is still available for downstreaming review and purchase. Buyers can “name their own price” for these albums (minimum of $10 per album), helping us to continue our fundraising efforts, and patrons can also send albums as gifts with a valid email address. Please share the Bandcamp link with friends and family members: https://westchestersymphonicwinds.bandcamp.com/

As announced, we are no longer producing and selling compact discs. Our participation in this streaming service helps reduce plastic waste, and helps us keep up with current distribution trends. We are working backwards chronologically to catch up and bring you all the recordings of the concerts we’ve performed since the last CDs were produced and sold for the 2018-2019 season.

Jen Plummer wrote me a very kind note this morning, and so I started thinking about what I wanted to say to you all as I wrote my reply to her. I just don’t know how to say it succinctly. So pour a glass of wine and read on.

Many performances are judged by rubrics geared toward accuracy, intonation, musicianship —  all of us have been on one side or the other of this. Naturally, I strive to attain our very best efforts in all those categories. I recognize that no performance is perfect, even performances that go as well as yesterday. But what is most important to me is the emotional impact inherent in our performances, and the memories we create for our audiences. It is always my hope that our audience members will leave our concerts recognizing that they have been changed — that they are not the same people as they were when they walked in.

I really think we attained this yesterday, and in huge ways. Here are two examples:

First, this morning we received a new donation to our Technology Fund. Made in honor of Dan Chiplock, the donation noted, “Thank you, Dan, for continuing to share the beautiful music of WSW. We are so grateful to have them and fortunate to have them right here in our backyard. Yesterday’s concert was life changing! I have never been so moved by a musical performance before.”

And second, a friend of mine brought along a guest who had never heard our group before, and introduced him to me after the concert. This gentleman just spent the past 28 years in prison, and was just released on parole last week. This was the first live performance of any kind he heard since 1995. This is what he told me — and pay special attention to what he said about the finale: “Classical music has always relaxed me. I don’t know who wrote what, but I know what it makes me feel. Each piece had different moods, sometimes intense, sometimes soft, and a lot of them ended with a soft kiss.The last piece told me the musicians had some sense of what we are dealing with in our communities, and that was powerful. I love that. Sitting there listening to all of that was amazing for me. I could listen to this all day.” So if you had any doubts that our performance moved people, that’s the evidence that it absolutely did.

Our guest artists repeated to me over and over that you welcomed them warmly. This has truly become a hallmark of this ensemble, and one of which I am truly proud. Thank you for continuing to extend an open hand and heart to them. Roland Davis wrote today to say, “To be present for the band’s spectacular performance was nothing short of soul-stirring. I was so glad to have been a part of it!”

Thank you for your individual, section, and full ensemble musicianship that has helped this ensemble gain a foothold and hang on through a global pandemic. And thank you for the myriad of individual sacrifices you make on a weekly basis to promote the health and well-being of this ensemble. Our ensemble is truly an organism that can thrive with nurture and care, or decline with neglect; thank you for continuing to make choices that insure our ongoing survival and growth amidst times that can often be difficult and uncertain.

We did not engage the professional videographer for this concert. However, we will move the audio recording to Band Camp as quickly as possible, as soon as Rob LaPorta and Richard Price produce and send the AIFF files and we complete the licensing process. Stay tuned for the announcement of the album release.

Lastly, I want to make a special note to thank everyone who has made a pledge to our new commission project. In case you couldn’t tell, I was truly surprised, emotional, and a bit overwhelmed by the presentation Wednesday night. I am especially grateful to Rachel for contacting my husband, Tim, and driving him over from White Plains to be a part of the moment. I have a short list of composers who interest me for this project, but I’m keeping an open mind to research and suggestions. Factors include costs (paramount, of course), availability, timeline, general composing style, previous project successes, and the intersection of where he/she and I meet musically and artistically. That last point is important, because the work with this composer will be personal and at times intense, like it was with Michael Markowski, and in 2000, with Timothy Broege. I’m grateful for those two previous commission experiences, and I feel I’ve learned a great deal about the process that will be helpful, even pivotal, with this third project.

In closing, thank you most especially for trusting me as your conductor and music director. In the trenches, as you approach the first reading rehearsal of each cycle, it must be challenging at times to see what I’m trying to do with the program as a whole. Sometimes it takes several weeks — or even the entire cycle — to see the view from 10,000 feet up. So thank you for sharing that trust, so we can all eventually share the magnificent view — and sound — of our work together.

Our next rehearsal is the Spring Concert read through, on Monday, February 27 at 7:30 pm at TMH. Until then, enjoy the time to rest and reflect on all these accomplishments.