The Friends of Music have donated a set of African drums to the music program at the North Jefferson Elementary School.
The drums were presented at an assembly of music students at the school on Wednesday, March 28. The accompanying photo shows Friends of Music Office Manager Jennifer Perrotte and Friends Board member An
drew McMillan, left, listening to music teacher Ruoshuan Chen speaking to his students.
The drum set contains three Remo 100 Series Key-tuned Tubano drums. Mr. Chen requested the drums to facilitate learning of a variety of different musical concepts, such as timbre, rhythm, beat and dynamics, and to allow his students to compare and contrast the percussive instruments of different cultures. He said he hopes to start a world drumming club at the school.
The Friends of Music said the total value of the donation was $599. The organization purchased the drums locally, at Ellsworth Music Supply and Repair, in Ranson, to help support local business as well as assist local students.
Friends President Linda Walker said the donation is part of an ongoing effort by the Friends to help support music education in local schools. She said the organization hopes to dedicate a total of $7,000 to this purpose this year, twice as much as last year.
The Friends of Music will present a special concert in Shepherdstown by the
St. James School Choir the evening of Saturday, April 14.
The concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church on West German Street.
There will be no set price for tickets but a donation of $10 per person is suggested. Proceeds from the event will be divided between the Friends of Music and the Trinity Treasure Kids Pre-School.
The Saint James School, which is located outside Hagerstown, was founded in 1842 and is celebrating its 175th Anniversary this year. It is a coeducational boarding school with 240 students. Its students come from 15 states and 16 countries.
Saint James is the oldest Episcopal boarding school based on the Oxford model in the U.S. It remains faithful to its historic identity as a Church school, maintaining the spiritual witness and discipline of regular daily worship, and continuing attention to the spiritual and moral formation of its students.
The School’s Choir is composed of 37 students in Forms III-VI. While the School is in session, the Choir’s singing centers on the twice-weekly services of Holy Eucharist and a student-led service of Compline on Sunday nights. Services of Choral Evensong are sung on and off campus throughout the year.
The Choir also performs special concerts and travels regionally, nationally and internationally. On February 8, they performed at Washington National Cathedral. During this year’s March break, they took a 13-day trip to England, singing Choral Evensong and concerts at Worcester Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral (London), Canterbury Cathedral, and St. Mary’s Collegiate Church in Warwick.
The Choir also recently completed a recording project entitled “There Is No Rose,” which included selections from the annual Service of Lessons and Carols.
St. James’ Headmaster, the Rev. Dr. D. Stuart Dunnan, said the members of the Choir “benefit from the discipline of singing two choral eucharists a week, in addition to their touring and other performances.” “This teaches strong sight-reading skills and creates a very strong, unified sound,” he said.
The Choir director is Linda Morgan Stowe, who is also the School’s organist and Chair of Fine Arts. She holds degrees in organ performance from Southern Methodist University and the Eastman School of Music. She is a medal examiner for the Royal School of Church Music in America, and she has served on the board of the Association of Anglican Musicians.
St. James plans to finish construction on a new music and art facility with a recital hall in spring, 2019.
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STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN MARCH 24 CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CONCERT
Four student musicians from the Berkeley County Orchestra Program have been chosen to participate in the next Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert on March 24.
The concert is sponsored by the Friends of Music. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Shepherdstown.
Entitled “Pipe Dreams,” it will feature Handel’s Overture to “Theodora,” two concertos for organ and orchestra by Handel, and Respighi’s Suite for Strings.
The Berkeley County students who will be participating in the concert are shown in the accompanying photograph. They are, from left to right: From left to right: Dalton Kendig, Hedgesville High School; Elena Ross, who is home schooled; Haylee Harding, Musselman High School; Kevin Hugas, Mountain Ridge Middle School.
They will join the Orchestra’s regular musicians for the performance of the Handel Overture.
All four of the students are enrolled in the Berkeley County Orchestra Program, which is also known as the Berkeley County Strings Program. The Program, which was initiated in 1996, provides string-instrument education to more than 600 students in the county’s high schools, middle schools and intermediate schools. It also maintains two select orchestral ensembles for high school and middle school students.
Friends of Music President Linda Walker said the students’ participation in the March 24 concert is part of an ongoing effort by the Friends to support music education in local elementary and secondary schools.
“All four of these young men and women are exceptionally talented and hard-working,” Walker said. “We’re delighted to be able to give them an opportunity to perform side-by-side with members of our Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra, who are all professionals, in a live concert setting. This should be a great learning experience for them.”
If you plan to attend our March 24 Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert you won’t want to miss the pre-concert luncheon!
- The luncheon will be held at Shepherdstown’s Bavarian Inn on Friday, March 23 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.
- The entrée choices for the luncheon will be: Vegetarian Lasagna, Club Sandwich or London Broil. Each lunch will include soup, dessert, assorted breads and butter, and coffee and tea.
- Tickets for the luncheon are sold separately from concert tickets at a cost of $20 per person. All tickets must be prepaid before March 20 so the Bavarian Inn can have an accurate meal count.
- To buy tickets on-line: CLICK HERE or send a check made out to “Friends of Music” to Friends of Music, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443. Be sure to indicate your menu choice. For more information, contact Jennifer Perrotte at info@friendswv.org.
The Friends of Music will present a Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert in Shepherdstown on Saturday, March 24.
The concert will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7:30 p.m. Entitled “Pipe Dreams,” it will feature two concertos for organ and orchestra performed on the Church’s historic organ by Maryland organist Marvin Mills. The concertos will be George Frideric Handel’s Op. 4, No. 1 in G Minor and Op. 4, No. 4 in F Major. Also on the program will be Handel’s Overture to “Theodora” and Ottorino Respighi’s Suite for Strings. Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $25 per person ($22.50 before March 11). 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.
Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Music Director Jed Gaylin will conduct. Noting that Handel was known as the greatest organist and composer of his day, Gaylin says the two concertos chosen for the concert are among the most “magnificently intimate” examples of Handel’s works.
Gaylin says the Overture to Theodora offers a “rich opulence of sound and texture,” and Respighi’s Suite “reworks the Baroque dance suite with beauty, clarity, and expression.”
The concert’s soloist, Marvin Mills, is organist at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Kensington, Maryland. He is also music director of the acclaimed National Spiritual Ensemble; a guest artist with the Ritz Chamber Players of Jacksonville, Florida; and a vocal coach/staff pianist at Morgan State University.
He has performed in concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Johns Hopkins Symphony, the Peabody Symphony, and the Jacksonville Symphony.
He has also appeared as guest artist with numerous choral groups, including the Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Washington Bach Consort, the Cathedral Choral Society, the Folger Consort, the Fairfax Choral Society, the Master Singers of Wilmington (DE), and the Eastern Michigan University Chamber Choir.
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. Gaylin was named Music Director in 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.
The Friends of Music are sponsoring their Third Annual “Puzzle Mania” jigsaw puzzle competition in Shepherdstown the afternoon of Sunday, February 25.
The event will be a fundraiser for the Friends and its Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra.
It will be held starting at 1:00 p.m. at the Shepherd University Wellness Center on the West Campus.
The jigsaw puzzle competition will consist of up to 25 teams of four persons each. Each team will start with the same 500-piece puzzle and vie with all the other teams to complete the puzzle first. The winning team will be honored with a trophy. Participants must recruit their own four-person teams from friends, neighbors or family members. The fee to participate will be $100 per team. Organizations and businesses may sponsor teams if they wish.
This is intended as a fun, light-hearted event. It will be family-friendly, and children 10 and older will be welcome to join as team members.
Light refreshments will be served.
Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite (click here).
For more information, contact Heather Marshall at heathermmarshall63@gmail.com or 304-582-9998.
The Friends of Music will present the third concert of their 2017-2018 season on Saturday, January 13.
The concert will feature the Two Rivers String Quartet. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church in Shepherdstown.
Entitled “Contrasting Passions,” it will include two works:
• Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) — String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, From My Life (Z mého života)
• Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) — String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13
Jed Gaylin, the Music Director of Friends of Music, says both works show great passion, but their styles are very different. He says the Mendelssohn piece is “virtuosic, fleet, and intense, with moments, such as the final chorale, of magnificent serenity.” On the other hand, he says, Smetana’s quartet “is earthy, rooted in Slavic folk music traditions.”
Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $20 per person ($18 before December 31).
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 there is snow that makes travel difficult on January 13, the concert will be rescheduled to January 20.
The Friends of Music have awarded $250 scholarships to two Spring Mills High School students to help them cover the cost of their participation in a prestigious New York City program for elite high school musicians.
The students, Rhea Ming and Travis Weller, are among 700 students from around the world who have been selected to be part of the 2018 Carnegie Hall High School Honors Performance Series. More than 18,000 students had applied. Ming and Weller are the only West Virginia students who will be participating.
The Performance Series will be held February 1-5. Participating students will gather together for three days of rehearsals with renowned conductors and a concert performance in the main hall at Carnegie Hall. They will also have opportunities for networking with each other and for chaperoned sightseeing activities.
The cost of participation is about $2,000 per student plus travel to and from New York. Ming and Weller have each set up Go Fund Me pages to cover these costs (“www.gofundme.com/rheas-going-to-carnegie-hall” and “www.gofundme.com/traviswellerNYC”).
Friends of Music President Linda Walker and Friends board member Andrew McMillan presented checks to Ming and Weller at the High School on December 6. The accompanying photo shows Ming and Weller in the center, with McMillan on the left and Walker, right.
Walker said the scholarships to Ming and Weller are part of a larger effort by the Friends of Music to help support music education in local schools.
Ming and Weller are both sophomores.
Ming is a viola player. She has played in the All-County Orchestra since middle school. She has also played in the 2017 West Virginia University high school honors orchestra and the West Virginia Music Educators Association All-state Orchestra. She is a member of the Tri-M Music Society.
Weller plays bass. He is a member of the Spring Mills High School String Orchestra and the All County Symphony Orchestra; where he is the first-chair bassist. He also plays in the Shepherd University Community Orchestra and has played with the West Virginia All State High School Orchestra.
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 classical music orchestra in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, and one of only three of such orchestras in the state.
Lunch with “Friends”
Those attending the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra’s 
November 18 concert in Shepherdstown 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, November 18 at 7:30 p.m.The luncheon, which is sponsored by the Friends of Music Guild, will be held at Shepherdstown’s Bavarian Inn on Friday, November 17 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. The concert’s guest soloist, violinist Ruotao Mao, will also be present.
The entrée choices for this luncheon will be: Chicken Picatta with mixed vegetables and whipped potatoes; Schweinebraten: Roasted Pork with sauerkraut and whipped potatoes; or Tagliatelle Pasta with fall vegetables in a cream sauce. Each lunch will include soup, dessert, assorted breads and butter, and coffee and tea. Tickets for the luncheon are sold separately from concert tickets at a cost of $20 per person. All tickets must be prepaid before November 14 so the Bavarian Inn can have an accurate meal count. To make a luncheon reservation send a check made out to Friends of Music Guild to Friends of Music, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443. Be sure to indicate your menu choice. For more information, contact Betty Lou Bryant at info@friendswv.org or 304-876-5765.
The concert will feature three works: “Träumerei,” by Robert Schumann; Prokofiev’s 2nd Violin Concerto; and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.
Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $25 per person ($22.50 before November 5. Tickets and Friends’ memberships 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. Gaylin was named Music Director in 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. Full information about the Friends, the Orchestra, and the concert season is available at www.friendswv.org.
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.
The Friends of Music will present a Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert in Shepherdstown on Saturday, November 18.
The concert will
be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7:30 p.m. Entitled “Joyful Noise,” it will feature three works: “Träumerei,” by Robert Schumann; Prokofiev’s 2nd Violin Concerto; and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. The featured soloist will be violinist Ruotao Mao.
Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $25 per person ($22.50 before November 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.
Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Music Director Jed Gaylin will conduct. Gaylin says the evening’s program “will demonstrate that classical music can, quite simply, be a lot of fun, and this is fun on overdrive!” The concert will open with Schumann’s “Träumerei,” a short, beautiful work that the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz frequently played as an encore. “It may look simple on the page,” Horowitz said, “but it is a masterpiece.” Prokofiev’s 2nd Violin Concerto is one of the finest examples of the composer’s effort to establish a “new simplicity” in music, centered on graceful melodies. Beethoven’s 7th Symphony is full of relentless energy. It is generally regarded as one of the most innovative, compelling, and ecstatic symphonies ever written.
Mr. Mao, the violin soloist, is a native of Beijing, China who graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a “distinction in performance” award. He currently teaches violin and chamber music at The College of New Jersey and is the concertmaster of the Delaware Valley Philharmonic Orchestra, the Riverside Symphonia, the Bay Atlantic Symphony and most recently, the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra. The Classical Network of New Jersey has described his playing as a “virtuoso display of world-class magnitude.”
This concert is dedicated to the memory of the late Sherman Ross of Shepherdstown, a longtime Friends of Music patron, by his wife Elinor.
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. Gaylin was named Music Director in 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.
Full information about the Friends, the Orchestra, and the concert season is available at www.friendswv.org.
FRIENDS OF MUSIC, INC. • PO BOX 220 • SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV 25443 • 304-876-5765 • info@friendswv.org