Author: windycityrecorders

Don’t forget to join us on Sunday, September 17 at 2 PM, at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 2012 West Dickens, in Chicago.

Our music director, Lisette Kielson, will begin the meeting with some body posture and awareness exercises, breathing mechanics, and incorporate musical exercises as related to the repertoire.

The music selected for the September meeting will includes:

• Summa by Arvo Pärt — parts
• Chaconne by Steve Marshall — parts
• Lentement by Linde – score
• Syrinx by Staeps – score
• Two Allegros by Bresgen – score

For the final hour of the meeting we will break out into groups.  Those who wish to play at the December 3 service at Covenant Church will rehearse their music. Others may form their own group(s) for ensemble playing.   A leader for a beginner group will also be available.

All music will be supplied by Lisette or by the chapter for this meeting.

Please mark your calendars and come play with us this Sunday!

Welcome to the 2017 – 2018 Season of the Chicago Chapter of the ARS!

We hope you’ve all had a great summer, and that you are now energized for all the recorder playing and performing you will have opportunities to do!

This recorder season, we welcome back our wonderful music director, Lisette Kielson!

The Board has also developed a new meeting format designed to emphasize ongoing improvement in our recorder playing and provide a welcoming environment for new members.

To promote these efforts, the new meeting format will generally include:

a) the session director to present and develop a topic from 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM, then

b) a SHORT break for snacks, etc., from 3:50 PM to 4:05 PM, then

c) our own ‘chapter hour’, in which we hope to include:
i) any chapter business and announcements
ii) breakout instruction for any lower level players, with their mentor or
other instructor
iii) rehearsal for our upcoming programs at Covenant church
iv) other informal group playing

Note for number ii): As part of our effort to welcome newer recorder players, we plan to have our experienced members act as mentors to new members. We will also
offer break-out groups for new member and mentor playing during our chapter hour.

As our main music director, Lisette will start each session with a technical topic, and then proceed to repertoire. The theme for the year will be “We’ve Got Rhythm”
and the music Lisette chooses will work on various different rhythms and meters.

Lisette’s technical topics will be:
Sep 17 – breathing
Nov 19 – tone
Jan 21 – tuning
Feb 18 – technique
Apr 15 – rhythm/counting

On two other dates, Oct. 15 and Mar. 18, we will have guest directors:
– On Oct. 15, our director will be well-known “international” recorderist
Mirja Lorenz, member of Black Tulip and the Chicago Recorder Quartet.
– On Mar. 18 we will welcome noted singer and voice teacher Andrew Schultze.
He will focus on the music of Claudio Monteverdi, in honor of his 450th birthday. (Monteverdi’s birthday, not Andrew’s!)

As part of the goal to emphasize ongoing improvement, we generally want to perform as well as possible. So we will ask that anyone who performs at the planned two Covenant
Church services will commit to attending monthly rehearsals and will practice between
monthly meetings.

Also, to make newer members feel at ease and to keep up with everyone, please remember to stop by the registration table and sign in at the start of every meeting.

The Board hopes that making these changes will give us all some new energy, and renew our commitment to the ongoing study of the recorder.

Looking forward to another year of recorder fun, friendship, and many opportunities for learning and playing!

Board of the Chicago Chapter ARS:
Larry Johnson
Lynette Colmey
Valerie DePriest
Hyacinth Egner

Dear members and friends of the Chicago Chapter of the American Recorder Society

We are so happy you are a part of our recorder family, no matter what your level of interest and involvement.  Looking forward to a new season of making music together, we need some feedback from you regarding how to make our chapter meetings more enriching, accessible, and relevant to you.  We hope you will take a few minutes to answer a short survey through the link below.

We fervently believe the recorder is a wonderful instrument for meaningful lifelong music making, musical exploration, and the fellowship of playing in an ensemble.  There has never been a richer time to play recorder.  Early music is more available than ever before, and new music is being arranged and composed for recorder as never before.

We want to keep our organization strong as a place for experienced players to find new challenges and for new players to develop their skills.  We need your feedback to do that.  Please give us a few minutes of your time and click the link below.

Thank you for your interest and support.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C7SXQHK

Yours in the joy of music making!

The CCARS Board

We hope you’ve all had a great summer, and that you are returning energized for all the recorder playing and performing you will have opportunities to do! For 2017-2018, the Board welcomes back our wonderful music director Lisette Kielson! The Board has also developed a new meeting format designed to encourage improvement in our recorder playing, welcome new members, and address some of our financial challenges.

Lisette will lead our September meeting on the 17th.

All this news plus a lot more is in the newsletter for September. Please have a read:

September 2017

This submission from Valerie DePriest came to late for the newsletter.

A heartfelt thanks to retiring president, Ben Eisenstein, and vice-president, Mark Dawson for their 5 years of service to our chapter.  During their time as officers they have organized our participation in the U. of C. Folk Festival, Make Music Chicago, Play the Recorder Month, our tribute luncheon for Hilde Staniulis, and our biennial recorder workshops.  They were instrumental in the hiring of Lisette Kielson as our director, and scheduled our guest leaders for our monthly playing sessions  Their dedication to our chapter and to community music making are so very appreciated.  We are very fortunate to have Mark continuing on producing our newsletter, and we know both will continue be active and contributing CARS members.  Thank you Ben and Mark!

This spring concert will be a little different. We will miss some regulars due to other commitments, illness, and a medieval music festival in Michigan the same weekend that will draw away some of our members. What does that mean? Opportunity! Some of you who attend and maybe perform only with the chapter or only with the Oak Park Recorder Society, here is your chance to be a star. Let’s have some duets and trios and quartets that have not been featured before.

Details in the May 2017 Newsletter.

The Chicago Chapter had a very successful workshop led by Anne Timberlake. Anne worked with the chapter on articulation principles, then had the participants apply what they learned to music written by a rogues’ gallery of composers!

Our next meeting will be March 19th and led by our own Dennis Sherman. Be sure to join us. Since it is March and it is play the recorder month, lets celibate by bringing a friend!

Our current newsletter can be found here:

march-2017

There is still time to sign up for our April workshop with Anne Timberlake! Improve your technical skills and while sampling the music of spies, lechers, debtors, drunkards, murderers, and cranks. The brochure can be found here:

ccars-workshop-flyer-2017

This workshop may be of interest to recorder players. The subject of this workshop is Gregorian Chant and Renaissance Polyphony:

http://summer.esm.rochester.edu/course/singing-gregorian-chant-and-renaissance-polyphony/

See you all at the March Meeting!

Note there is an error in the newsletter.  The Chicago Recorder Quartet’s performance is at Byron Colby Barn on March 19 at 4 PM The correct address for the site is 1561 Jones Point Road in Grayslake, not 32400 North Harris Road as reported.

The Chicago Chapter performed and hosted a jam session at the University of Chicago’s 57th Folk Festival. It was directed by Lisette Kielson. It was very successful and many of the audience members brought recorders to the Jam Session!