SBRS News and Announcements

SOUTH BAY BUZZ

Newsletter of the South Bay Recorder Society

A Chapter of the American Recorder Society

An Affiliate of the San Francisco Early Music Society

Annette Bauer will be returning to South Bay to direct our chapter meeting at 7:30 PM on May 2, in the Choir Room of San Jose Congregational Church. Annette, a native of Germany, studied medieval and renaissance music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, specializing on recorder techniques with Conrad Steinmann (2001). She holds an MA in music from UC Santa Cruz (2004), and has been a student at the Ali Akbar College of Music in California since 1998, where she studies North Indian classical music on sarode, a stringed instrument. As a recorder player, Annette regularly performs with Baroque ensemble Les graces, Istanpitta medieval music ensemble, Farallon recorder consort, and has appeared at the Santa Cruz Baroque and the Carmel Bach Festivals, as well as with Texas Early Music Project, Chamber Music San Francisco, the Catacoustic Consort, and the California Bach Society. She has served on the recorder faculty for several of the San Francisco Early Music Society summer workshops, as well as for the Texas Fall Toot, and the San Francisco Orff Certification Course. Annette currently also teaches music at a K-8 school in Oakland, CA, and regularly conducts recorder workshops and classes in medieval notation in the San Francisco Bay Area. She plays Brazilian percussion with Maracatu Luta, and is the co-founder of Magic Carpet, a duo dedicated to the art of improvisation.

Dance, dance, dance! Dance music from the 16th century to modern times is at the heart of the program for the South Bay Recorder Society meeting on 5/2/2008. We'll begin the evening with the only vocally conceived piece, "Virgo Celesti" by Loyset Compere, and then dive right into an eclectic mix of short dance pieces from the 16th and 17th centuries, including an instrumental version of "Tant que vivrai" with triplet dance, an anomyous Jacobean masque, Scottish, Polish, dances, as well as arrangements of Bartok's Hungarian dances collected in the early part of the 20th century. To round off the evening, "Recorder Rally", a piece by Matthias Maute for this year's play-the-recorder-month, will be followed by Allan Rosenheck's "Wild West Suite", a contemporary, tongue-in-cheek sound portrait of the American "Wild West", which includes, not surprisingly, a "boot dance" (by the "camp fire").

I thank all involved in making our March 29th Workshop such a success. Everyone enjoyed the directors, Clea and Judy, as they provided a variety of music for all levels. Since we had such a nice registration, we were able to support the directors more generously than in the past. To be commended is Stevie White for arranging this event and also the concert on Sunday. Thank you one and all for supporting this effort

Our monthly meeting with Roger Morris was a fun evening. He began the evening with two pieces composed by Max Reger. With a modern touch this composer gave us some unusual harmonies. Following the break we tackled Lobet den Herrn - BWV 230 by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was a challenge enjoyed by all. Our final piece by Josequin des Pres titled La Deploration de Okenheim had some lovely harmonies. Thank you, Roger, for sharing with us.

I wish to thank the wonderful 2007-2008 Board of SBRS. Everyone contributed to the successful year. Thank you all.

Annual Meeting of SBRS
During our break at the May meeting, we will have the Annual Meeting of SBRS.
We elect officers and appoint members of the Board.
Proposed Officers and Board for 2008-2009 year.
President - Liz Brownell Music Distribution – Harry Stewart

Secretary - Libby Codd                                  Sunshine – Anne-Marie Wiggers
Treasurer - Anne Ng                                       Web Master – Dale Victorine
Newsletter - Laura Gonsalves,                         Historian - Anne-Marie Wiggers

Musical Historian - Joanna Woodrow               Member – at – Large – Ex-President
Hospitality - Jean Ridley                                        Emeritus – Joanna Woodrow
Librarian - Georgiana Rudge                            Members – at – Large – Dick Oglesbee,
Membership - Anne Ng                                           Don Watson, Lois Ario
Nominations from the floor are welcomed.

Composer (and SBRS webmaster) Dale Victorine's "Petite Suite for Recorder Quartet" was performed Sunday, April 13 at the fifth annual NACUSA (National Association of Composers, USA, SF Bay Area Chapter) Concert at Foothill Presbyterian Church in east San Jose. SBRS member Libby Codd and I attended, and enjoyed the whole affair. We found the ten pieces by local composers, all in the audience, to be interesting and well performed, and some were downright enjoyable.
The last certainly applied to Dale's quartet, one movement of which SBRS had played under Dale's direction at our March Members' Night meeting. It was far more ably performed at the concert by Dan Bloomberg, Pat Marion, Dick Oglesbee, and Owen Saxton. Pat and Dick are SBRS members.
The pieces were all for voice and traditional instruments, except for the one for "radio-baton". You had to be there... Anne Ng

Georgiana Rudge has graciously volunteered to host the June Play-in and Anne-Marie Wiggers has volunteered for July. Is there another member who like to host the August Play-in? If so, please contact Liz Brownell or me, the Editor. Thank you.

Thank you Jean Ann and Rachel for providing refreshments for us for the April meeting. We were also lucky enough to have leftover goodies from the SBRS workshop. Thank you everyone for your efforts. I would like to remind Suzanne Rankin and Margaret More for volunteering cookies for the May meeting.

South Bay Recorder Society gained an unprecedented three (3) new members in the last month! That brings our paid membership to a record 39, not including our 3 honorary members, webmaster Dale Victorine and ever enthusiastic volunteer director Roger Morris and his wife My. Our new members, in alphabetical order, are:

New member Parry Campbell grew up in San Francisco and San Mateo, and lives in Palo Alto. She took piano lessons for a few years in grade school, and then as a high school junior took up oboe, playing in both band and orchestra.

She remained an oboeist for about 10 years, until the frustration of dealing with reeds led to a musical hiatus of many years. Then a couple years ago, she decided to try recorder, taught herself a bit, and jumped into the week long summer recorder workshop in San Rafael. There she got Judy Linsenberg's name and signed on as a student. She's been playing baroque sonatas with a harpsichordist and viola da gambist. And now she's thinking of taking up baroque oboe, also. She tried MPRO and heard about SBRS, and what with her teacher, Judy, being one of the directors, showed up for our workshop--and joined. Welcome, Parry!

New member Sheila Cooper of Fremont is a fourth generation native Californian. Born in Oakland, she grew up in Fremont, where she started playing flute in school in 8th grade, and then switched to clarinet in 9th grade. She moved to Hayward in 10th grade, keeping up marching band and adding oboe. Then music went by the wayside, except that she taught herself to play recorder, until she got married and her husband bought her a new flute and she joined the Castro Valley Community Band. She's now learning hammered dulcimer. Sheila got back to recorder a couple years ago when her family (husband and both sons) got involved in a Guild that recreates the 1562 court of Queen Mary. Looking for a chance to play recorder with others, she found our web site, showed up to our March meeting, and joined. Welcome, Sheila!

New member Baba Nicole Herrick of Los Gatos was born in Chicago and grew up in a housing project there. She claims it was summers on her grandparents' farm in Iowa that made her who she is today. She loved music and sang all the time, but music lessons had to wait until high school, when her long arms and fingers led to her being assigned to the viola in the orchestra. She married a guitarist, and remembers playing viola with his guitar, until they ended up in New York and three recorder playing friends inspired her to teach herself recorder. Since then she's tinkered with several folk instruments, including guitar, 5 string banjo, mountain dulcimer, and percussion instruments. She loves playing with women's drumming groups. It was in a dulcimer session in Los Altos that she met recorder players who led her to SBRS. She came to our March workshop and was pleased to survive the morning, and joined at our April meeting. Welcome, Baba!

MARIN HEADLANDS RECORDER WORKSHOP 2008 is scheduled for the week end of May 16 – 18. Intermediate and advanced players of recorders and viols are invited to attend this workshop presented annually by the East Bay chapter of the American Recorder Society. Music making begins on Friday and continues through Sunday afternoon, including also one-day and two-day options. Here is contact information:
Contact Cindy Keune at cindy_keune@yahoo.com, Jody Harcourt at jodyharcourt@comcast.net, or Anna Lisa Kronman at 925-258-9442,
annalisakronman@gmail.com, for further information or to be added to the mailing list.

Hello, again, Recorder Friends! One of the faculty who will be at our annual EBRS Marin Headlands workshop this May is John Tyson. He is flying in specifically for the workshop from Cambridge, MA, and to help make the trip mutually beneficial, (also affordable) he is offering a special evening class on Tuesday, May 20, following the workshop weekend. The class will be held from 7 to 9:30 pm at MusicSources in Berkeley (1000 the Alameda at Marin). Enrollment will be limited due to the size of the space, so please let me know if you plan to attend to reserve your place in the class. The fee will be $30, music included, of course. Thanks, and hope to see you there! Greta Hryciw. More information: hryciw@comcast.net. John’s web page: http://members.aol.com/TysonPage/