Eighteen music students (pictured above), ranging from sixth grade through high school, participated in the Columbia Festival Orchestra’s new education program “Take a Seat…in the Orchestra” in conjunction with CFO’s 3-day residency at PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century) in Chatham, NY, July 25-27, 2008.

The following students took their seats next to their CFO mentors: violins: Cathleen Alarcon, Jeffrey Girton, Elizabeth Moran, Trevor DePew, Lydia Curran and Deidre Kelly; viola: Samantha Oakes; cello: Patrick Jones; string basses: Alexander Toth; flutes: Glynnis MacDonald and Annalise Krajeski; clarinet: Angela Matthews and Sterlene Negron; trumpet: Michael Krajeski; french horns: Anna Costello, Austin Klein, and Bethany Meyers; trombone: Raja Pillai. School districts represented include Hudson, Chatham, Ichabod Crane, Taconic Hills and Germantown, as well as Cairo-Durham, Hawthorne Valley, Gt. Barrington Rudolph Steiner, John Jay, Averill Park, and Mineola Middle School.

For a complete program listing CLICK HERE.  For additional photos CLICK HERE.

CFO’s Take a Seat program will continue into the fall with two opportunities for students (both taking place at St. James Church in Chatham):

• October 19 – flute reading session with the 4 members of Flute Force
• December 20 – Community Sing of Handel’s Messiah

More information will be available shortly about these programs.

The Columbia Festival Orchestra, founded in 1988 by artistic director and conductor Gwen Gould, is a professional orchestra based in Columbia County, NY, whose mission is to present classical music and other concerts to the highest degree of excellence and to cultivate an appreciation of the art of music in young people and adults.

Click the links below for more information:
Columbia Festival Orchestra
Take a Seat…in the Orchestra

Twenty music students, ranging from fifth grade through high school, have been accepted to participate in the Columbia Festival Orchestra’s new education program “Take a Seat…in the Orchestra.” This program will take place in conjunction with CFO’s 3-day residency at PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century) in Chatham, NY, July 25-27, 2008.

Student interns will be seated with their mentors in the orchestra for rehearsals and two performances of a new work, written for the occasion by Chatham graduate, David Grunberg. Overture to a New Theatre, is scored for orchestra and incorporates sections that will be orchestrated specifically for the students participating in this program. They met for the first time to rehearse their parts with the composer on July 21st (see photo).

The following students will Take their Seats… violins: Cathleen Alarcon, Victor Feldman, Jeffrey Girton, Elizabeth Moran, Trevor DePew, Lydia Curran and Deidre Kelly; viola: Samantha Oakes; cello: Patrick Jones; string basses: Alexander Toth and Oliver Kress; flutes: Glynnis MacDonald and Annalise Krajeski; clarinet: Angela Matthews and Sterlene Negron; trumpet: Michael Krajeski; french horns: Anna Costello, Austin Klein, and Bethany Meyers; trombone: Raja Pillai. School districts represented include Hudson, Chatham, Ichabod Crane, Taconic Hills and Germantown, as well as Cairo-Durham, Hawthorne Valley, Gt. Barrington Rudolph Steiner, John Jay, Averill Park, Mineola Middle School, and one student is home-schooled.

The residency of the CFO and its associated education program “Take a Seat…in the Orchestra” have been made possible through the generous support of the the following corporations and foundations: Arcon Construction, Berkshire Taconic Foundation Fund for Columbia County, Melanie and Howard Brandston Fund, Francis Greenburger Charitable Fund, Ed Herrington, Inc., Hudson River Bank & Trust Foundation, JSL Computer Services, Lavelle & Finn, Marilyn and Bob Laurie Fund, Mario’s True Value Home Center, Metz Wood Harder Insurance, Old Chatham Sheepherding Company. Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation, Stewart’s, David G. Whitcomb Foundation and many individuals (list in preparation).

Performances take place on Saturday, July 26 at 6 pm and on Sunday, July 27 at 2 pm. The program will also include Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, the “Classical,” Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with CFO Young Artist Chanel Wood, soprano, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Order TICKETS ONLINE or print out and mail the TICKET ORDER FORM.

The Columbia Festival Orchestra, founded in 1988 by artistic director and conductor Gwen Gould, is a professional orchestra based in Columbia County, NY, whose mission is to present classical music and other concerts to the highest degree of excellence and to cultivate an appreciation of the art of music in young people and adults.

Click the links below for more information:
Columbia Festival Orchestra
Take a Seat…in the Orchestra

Take a Seat…in the Orchestra is a three-day program for serious-minded music students to intern and perform with the Columbia Festival Orchestra. It will take place at PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century – www.ps21chatham.org) in Chatham, New York, on July 25, 26, and 27, 2008. Each participant will be seated with an orchestra member and will rehearse and perform with them in the world premiere of Prelude to a New Theater by Chatham High School alumnus, David Grunberg. Students will have the opportunity to interview their mentors, socialize with them, and learn what it is like to be a professional musician.

Tuition is free. The application procedure is straightforward: a short form, a brief statement about why the student would like to participate; and a recommendation letter from the student’s teacher. Players of all orchestral woodwinds, strings, and trumpet, horn, and percussion are invited to apply. Applications are now being accepted. Please fill out the application form below or contact program chairman, Cristy Sisk, conductor and educator, at 518 828 4322 for more information. Deadline is June 1st.

The Columbia Festival Orchestra announces Chanel Wood, soprano, to be CFO’s Young Artist 2008.

Ms. Wood, from the Graduate Program in Vocal Arts at Bard, will perform Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the CFO on its 20th anniversary concert, July 26-27, 2008, at PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century) in Chatham, NY.

We are grateful to the David G. Whitcomb Foundation for supporting our Young Artist 2008, making possible the appearance of Ms. Wood. For more information about this event, please click on the following links:

Chanel Wood, soprano

CFO 20th Anniversary Program

On Saturday, March 29th at 6 pm at First Presbyterian Church, 369 Warren Street, Hudson NY, Mary Hack & Nina Fine, mezzo-sopranos, and Gwen Gould, pianist, will present MezzoMezzo! to benefit the Friends of First Presbyterian Church’s preservation fund. The concert will include selections from American Musical Theater and Opera. Suggested donation is $15. Click here for program.

Columbia Festival Orchestra (CFO)
Gwen Gould, conductor
at PS21 in Chatham
Saturday July 26, 2008 at 6 pm
Sunday July 27 2008, at 2 pm

CFO 20th Anniversary Concert
Program and featured Young Artist TBA

Education Program: Take a Seat…in the Orchestra
In connection with the July performances, CFO will inaugurate an exciting new mentoring program for area music students:

• a 3-day program where student interns will
  • be assigned a mentor in the orchestra according to the instrument they play
  • help with orchestra setup for rehearsals & concerts
  • sit in the orchestra during rehearsals
  • play one selection with the CFO in concert (which they must learn in advance) that will be a world premiere (soon to be announced)
  • attend a CFO picnic
  • introduce their mentors to friends and family at concerts.
  • receive a special Take a Seat…in the Orchestra T-shirt
  • Students will be able to apply through their instrumental teachers in area schools or private teachers. To recommend a student, click HERE
• Volunteers needed to organize and supervise student interns in the following schedule July 25-27, 2008:
  • Friday: 2 rehearsals with bag lunch between rehearsals for musicians and student interns
  • Friday night: CFO picnic for all interns and CFO musicians
  • Saturday morning: Dress Rehearsal
  • Saturday night and Sunday afternoon: Performances
  • If you are interested in helping, please click here to e-mail me

More details to follow…

photo: blandor for PS21

You are invited to Join with your neighbors and fellow music lovers in a Community Sing of Handel’s Messiah on Friday, December 21st at 7:30 pm at St. James Church in Chatham, at the corner of Rtes 66 and 203. Directions

What is a Sing? It’s when YOU, the members of the audience, become the performers. It’s what you dream about when you sing your favorite arias in the shower! All who attend will sing the chorus parts and even the solos! Listeners are welcome too.

Supported by an instrumental ensemble of strings and conducted by Gwen Gould, you will have the opportunity to sing the Christmas Portion of Messiah and end with the Halleluia Chorus. Conductor Gould began her career as an organist in New York City and founded the West Village Chorale in New York City. She has been doing “Sings” of major choral works since 1972, when she started the West Village Chorale Summer Sings in Greenwich Village and conducted Sings for the New York Choral Society. In 2006, she started a series of Summer Sings at PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century) in Chatham. Ms. Gould has been an active performer around Columbia County since 1983, when she and her family bought a house in the Town of Claverack. In 1988, she founded the Columbia Festival Orchestra, a professional orchestra now resident at PS21. She has performed at venues around the county including the Hudson Opera House, Basilica Industria, Spencertown Academy, North Pointe, The Shaker Museum & Library, PS21, Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood and various churches.

“This is not a performance, it’s an event!” says conductor Gould, “and a joyful way to start the holiday season.” Scores will be provided and light refreshments will be served during the break.

Tickets are $10 at the door; $8 in advance (CLICK HERE).

I have been asked to find 20 PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO SING to be a part of an enthusiastic audience for a taping of a PBS special that will include Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul & Mary) and the duo Bethany (Peter’s daughter) and Rufus. Part of the broadcast will include an audience SING-ALONG led by these performers.

See the information below. This requires a committment on your part, so I hope you will follow through if you agree to participate.

Bearsville Theater
291 Tinker St (Route 212)
Woodstock, NY 12498

Tuesday, October 2 and Wednesday, October 3
6:30 – 8 pm

Directions
Get driving directions with Google Maps

Please E-MAIL me about your participation. Indicate which days you will be able to attend – perferably both!. You will receive a special gift from Peter in appreciation for your participation.

Thanks,

Gwen

About Bethany & Rufus

The duo of Bethany & Rufus features Bethany Yarrow singing and Rufus Cappadocia playing cello.

Yarrow grew up surrounded by folk music. Her father, Peter Yarrow, was in the group Peter, Paul and Mary. But Bethany Yarrow wasn’t always interested in pursuing traditional music. She started out writing rock songs and hanging out in New York clubs like Danceteria and CBGB.

Yarrow eventually realized that she had broader musical interests. She met Cappadocia in at a New York show in 1999 and started trading musical ideas with the inventive cellist, a collaboration that reinterprets American folk songs with a sound that resembles jazz.

It’s not surprising to find Yarrow playing music rooted in the American experience, and its many struggles. Beyond her father’s devotion to folk music was his devotion to the political causes of the 1960s. Peter Yarrow involved his daughter Bethany in the events and campaigns that followed that tumultuous decade, a series of experiences that surface in her music today.

Hi all,
Just wanted you to know that Sheila Silver, who was composer-in-residence for the Columbia Festival Orchestra in 2003, has been named the recipient of the sixth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. See press release below. Congratulations, Sheila!
Gwen

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Winner of 2007 Sackler Composition Prize Named

Composer Sheila Silver has been named the recipient of the sixth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. The competition, organized by the School of Fine Arts, supports and promotes composers and the performance of their new musical works. An international award, the prize offers a substantial recognition including public performances, recordings, and a prize of $20,000 (USD). This year’s prize was in the area of Chamber Opera.

“The prize is part of a broader structure promoting innovation, inventiveness and the creative spirit within the School of Fine Arts,” says David G. Woods, dean of the school. “It provides the opportunity for cutting-edge creative exploration and productivity, and will reflect the essence of creativity in the artistic program of the school.”

Sheila Silver is an important and vital voice in American music today. She has written in a wide range of mediums: from solo instrumental works to large orchestral works; from opera to feature film scores. Her musical language is a unique synthesis of the tonal and atonal worlds, coupled with a rhythmic complexity which is both masterful and compelling. Again and again, audiences and critics praise her music as powerful and emotionally charged, accessible, and masterfully conceived. “Only a few composers in any generation enliven the art form with their musical language and herald new directions in music. Sheila Silver is such a visionary.” (Wetterauer Zeitung, Germany, 2004)

Born in Seattle, Washington in 1946, Silver began piano studies at the age of five. Ms. Silver earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley in 1968 where she began composition studies with Edwin Dugger. Upon graduation she was awarded the coveted George Ladd Prix de Paris for two years study in Europe where she worked with Erhard Karkoschka in Stuttgart and Gyorgy Ligeti in Berlin and Hamburg. She earned her doctorate from Brandeis University where she studied with Arthur Berger, Harold Shapero, and Seymour Shifrin. Her studies also included an Abraham Sachar Traveling Grant which enabled her to spend 18 months in London and a Koussevitzky Fellowship for a summer at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood where she studied with Jacob Druckman.

Sheila Silver’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by numerous orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists throughout the United States and Europe. Her opera, The Thief of Love, A Lyric-Comic Opera in Three Acts, was featured in New York City Opera’s Showcasing American Composers, May 2000 and received its fully staged world premiere in March 2001 by the Stony Brook Opera. A DVD of that production was released in 2006 by Hummingbird Films.

Recent recordings, both on the Naxos label, include her Piano Concerto and Six Preludes for Piano on poems of Baudelaire, with Alexander Paley, piano, and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Gintaras Rinkevicius, conductor; and her Shirat Sara (Song of Sarah) with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony Strings.

Midnight Prayer, A Call to World Peace, was commissioned and premiered by the Stockton Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and received subsequent performances by the Rochester Philharmonic and the Stony Brook Symphony.

Silver composed the sound track to Who the Hell is Bobby Roos?, a feature film which was awarded the New American Cinema Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, 2002 and is currently available on DVD.

Sheila Silver lives in Spencertown, New York, with her husband, film writer and director, John Feldman, and their 9 year old son, Victor Feldman. Silver is Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Her music is published by MMB Music, Studio 4 Productions, and Argenta Music, and is recorded on various labels.

“Following the completion of the DVD of my first opera, The Thief of Love, I am excited and ready to start work on a new opera,” exclaims Ms. Silver.

Silver’s winning opera proposal, The Wooden Sword, tells the story of a poor man whose joyful approach to living is put to the test by his powerful king. The man triumphs through wit, resourcefulness, and faith. Based on a fourteenth-century tale from Afghanistan, the music will be lyrical with exotic oriental touches, and will range from dramatic to comic.

“Like The Thief of Love, my first opera, The Wooden Sword will be accessible and engaging to people of all ages and all levels of opera experience. Since this is a piece designed to be produced on a small budget and to be transportable, careful attention will be paid to the text setting so that the story can be easily followed without subtitles, “explains Silver.

Ms. Silver was chosen from among 85 entries from 11 countries and 28 states. Among the finalists were composers Christina Marie Spinet of Stamford, Connecticut and Daniel Kellogg of Erie, Colorado.

The prize was established through a gift from Raymond and Beverly Sackler, major philanthropists and frequent donors to the University. The Sacklers fund several important initiatives at the School of Fine Arts, including an artist-in-residence program, the Master Artists and Scholars Institute, and the Art and Archeology Lecture Series. The Sacklers were also instrumental in forging an academic partnership between the Metropolitan Opera and UConn, the first collaboration of its kind between the opera company and an institution of higher learning. In addition to the fine arts programs, the Sacklers fund many other initiatives at UConn.

Each year, entrants are asked to compose a piece for a specific area of the musical arts, chosen by the head and other faculty of the music department, such as a jazz ensemble, choir, opera, wind ensemble, children’s choir, or solo instrument. For more information, please visit www.sacklercompositionprize.uconn.edu

The 2007 Adjudication Panel was comprised of John Corigliano, Mark Ross Clark and George Twombly.

Past Sackler Prize Composition Winners:

2006 Rufus Reid
Jazz Ensemble

2005 Stacy Garrop
Chamber Ensemble

2004 Orianna Webb
Chamber Orchestra

2003 Karim Al-Zand
Chamber Orchestra

2002 Gabriela Frank
Chamber Ensemble

I invite you to SING with us the music of Faure, Bach, Rutter and Haydn this summer.  See details below.

Gwen

SUMMER SINGS 2007
at PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century)
2980 Rte 66 (1 mile north of center of town), Chatham, NY
Directions
Mondays at 7:30 pm

Gwen Gould, conductor
Michael Clement, pianist

WHAT IS A “SING?”
It’s when YOU, the AUDIENCE, sing the choruses of these magnificent choral works, under the stars at PS21. The evening begins with a brief rehearsal, then a break for refreshments and a complete run-through with professional soloists. Bring your voice out of the shower and join with your neighbors and fellow choral singers in these favorite masterworks.

See EVENTS for more information