FRIENDS OF MUSIC AWARD SCHOLARSHIPSTO TWO AREA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

The Friends of Music have awarded $500 scholarships to two graduating seniors from area high schools.
The scholarships were presented at a Friends’ concert last Saturday, May 18, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Shepherdstown.
The recipients were Lilly Noel, of Shepherdstown, who will graduate June 2 from the St. James School, and Walter Kester, of Charles Town, who graduated May 19 from Jefferson High School.
One accompanying photo shows Noel, left, with Friends of Music president Linda Walker, right. The other photo shows Walker, left, with Kester, right
Both of the students were recommended highly for their musical abilities, leadership qualities and their character.
Noel has been a member of the string program for community students at Shepherd University for the past six years. An outstanding violinist, she earned the title of concertmaster of the Shepherd Community Orchestra for the 2018-2019 season.
At school, she has been equally dedicated to academics and sports. She and her family are active members of Shepherdstown’s St. Agnes Parish.

Kester began playing tuba in middle school when he was living in Weatherford, Texas. He was named “Best Brass Player” in his eighth-grade year there and then took up the sousaphone in the ninth grade. His family moved to Charles Town in the middle of his freshman high school year, and he has been an integral member of the Jefferson High School Marching Band, Concert Band, and Symphonic Band for the past four years.
He plans to major in music education and performance at West Virginia Wesleyan University.
Walker said the two scholarships are part of an ongoing effort by the Friends group to help support music education in local schools.
The Friends of Music is a Shepherdstown-based, non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 to support and promote musical excellence. It supports the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra, the only professional chamber music orchestra in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, and one of only three of such orchestras in the state.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW FOR MAY 18 ORCHESTRA CONCERT IN SHEPHERDSTOWN

The Friends of Music will present a Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert in Shepherdstown on Saturday, May 18.
The concert will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7:30 p.m.
Entitled “Nonsense and Sensibility,” it will feature two works: Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat major, and “Façade: An Entertainment,” by the 20th Century English composer William Walton.
The Orchestra’s music director, Jed Gaylin, will conduct.
The Beethoven Septet was one of the composer’s most popular works during his lifetime, and it remains of great interest today.
Walton’s Façade offers audiences a very different kind of concert experience. First performed publicly in 1923, it was considered by many at the time to be outrageous. In this work, Walton combined recitations of Dame Edith Sitwell’s poetry, which is sometimes called absurdist and sometimes surrealistic, with modernist, jazz-inspired music. The net effect reflects the exuberant, mischievous spirit of the 1920s.
For this performance, the poetry readers will be Monica Reinagel and Gran Wilson.
Reinagel, who lives in Baltimore, is a classically trained singer who also happens to be a nationally known nutritionist.
Wilson is an operatic tenor who has sung, and continues to sing, with companies throughout the US and Europe, and who also teaches at the University of Maryland’s School of Music.
Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $30 per person ($27.50 before May 5). Tickets can be purchased on the Friends’ website at www.friendswv.org; or by mail (FOM, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443); or, if space is available, at the church the evening of the performance. Visa and Master Card will be accepted.
The Friends of Music is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 to support and promote musical excellence. The Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra was established by the Friends in 2007 and held its first concert in the fall of 2008. Gaylin has been music director since 2012. He also serves as the music director of Baltimore’s Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, and is an Artist in Residence at New Jersey’s Stockton University.
This year’s Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Concerts are being supported by a grant from the WV Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts.

SIGN UP NOW FOR MARCH 29 PRE-CONCERT LUNCH IN SHEPHERDSTOWN

Those attending the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert in Shepherdstown on March 30 will have an opportunity to get a preview of the performance at a luncheon the day before.
The concert, which is sponsored by Friends of Music will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church on Saturday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m.
The luncheon will be held at Shepherdstown’s Bavarian Inn on Friday, March 29 at 12 noon.
The orchestra’s Music Director, Jed Gaylin, will speak, offering his insights into the works that will be performed at the concert. He will be joined by composer J. Kimo Williams and pianist Scott Beard.
Williams is the composer of the concert’s featured work, “Into the Liquid.” Beard will be performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 at the concert.
The concert will also include a performance of Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia No. 8 in D.
Tickets for the luncheon are sold separately from concert tickets at a cost of $25 per person. All tickets must be prepaid before Tuesday, March 26, so the Bavarian Inn can have an accurate meal count.
To buy tickets, go to the Friends of Music website at www.friendswv.org or send a check made out to “Friends of Music” to Friends of Music, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443. Entrée choices will be listed on the website. For more information, contact Jennifer Perrotte at info@friendswv.org.
Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $30 per person ($27.50 before March 17). Tickets can be purchased on the Friends’ website at www.friendswv.org; or by mail (FOM, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443); or, if space is available, at the church the evening of the performance. Visa and Master Card will be accepted.
The Friends of Music are a non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 to support and promote musical excellence. The Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra was established by the Friends in 2007 and held its first concert in the fall of 2008. Gaylin has been music director since 2012. He also serves as the music director of Baltimore’s Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, and an Artist in Residence at New Jersey’s Stockton University.
This year’s Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Concerts are being supported by a grant from the WV Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts.

Everyone is invited to a Friends of Music Mardi Gras dinner at Shepherdstown’s Bavarian Inn on Friday, March 1.

The event will be a fundraiser for the Friends. All proceeds will benefit our concert programs and the grants and scholarships we provide to support music education in local schools.

The evening will begin with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at 6:00 p.m. and include a complimentary drink, a three-course Cajun style dinner, music and dancing.

The featured band will be Dixieland Express of Maryland, which plays true New Orleans style jazz with the traditional instrumentation of cornet, trombone, clarinet, tuba, banjo and drums.

There will also be a 50-50 draw and a wine-pull raffle. For the wine-pull, all the bottles will be numbered and wrapped so their labels can’t be seen; raffle-ticket holders will get to keep the bottles that correspond with numbers they draw.

Dress for the event will be cocktail attire, with costumes encouraged.

Tickets will be $90 per person, with $45 of that amount tax deductible. Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite through the Friends of Music website at www.friendswv.org. Or call or email the Friends office at 304-876-5765 or info@friendswv.org. The deadline for reserving seats is Monday, February 25.

The Bavarian Inn is offering a 10 percent discount on March 1 room rates for dinner attendees. To secure this rate, call the Inn at 304-876-2551 and say you are attending.

The Friends of Music will present the third concert of their 2018-2019 season on Saturday, January 19.
The concert will be an organ recital by prize-winning organist Julie Vidrick Evans, of Washington D.C.
It will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the historic Trinity Episcopal Church in Shepherdstown.
The recital will include a rich variety of works from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, including Handel’s Concerto in F Major, Op. 4, and Mendelssohn’s Sonata I in F Minor, Op. 65
Admission will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $25 per person ($22.50 before January 6).
Tickets can be purchased on the Friends’ website at www.friendswv.org or by mail (FOM, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443). Visa and Master Card will be accepted.
If snow or ice makes travel difficult on January 19, the concert will be rescheduled to January 26.
Ms. Evans has performed with distinguished ensembles and in solo concerts in cathedrals and concert halls across the U.S. and Eastern Europe. Her performance venues in the U.S. have included The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; The Washington National Cathedral; The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception; Princeton University Chapel; Trinity Church, Wall Street, and St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in New York City; Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago: and Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston.
She has been a featured performer in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, and the Region III Convention of the American Guild of Organists.
A devoted cyclist, Ms. Evans is often seen biking to work at The Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. where she oversees a robust music program and is artistic director of the 42nd Annual Bach Marathon and The Chevy Chase Concert Series, now in its 48th year.
In addition to holding church positions in the Washington, D.C. area, she has served as Choral Conductor-in-Residence at American University and Associate Conductor of Masterworks Chorus. She has also served the American Guild of Organists as clinician, recitalist, Dean, Trichapter Chair, Co-Chair of the Committee for New Music, and Executive Assistant for the 2010 National AGO Convention.  Ms. Evans earned a Master of Music from The Catholic University of America as a student of Wojciech Wojtasiewicz, and a Bachelor of Music from James Madison University as a student of Richard McPherson.
The Friends of Music is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 to support and promote musical excellence in the region. For full information about the Friends and their concerts go to www.friendswv.org.

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