SEATTLE RECORDER SOCIETY

Recorder Notes

September 2017

Vol. XLIX, No. 1

www.seattle-recorder.org

From the Music Director (Vicki Boeckman)

Greetings everyone,

Hopefully you are all happily sated after the summer's plethora of workshops, concerts and other inspiring activi-ties. I certainly am, and I am eager to embark on a new sea-son of music playing and collaborations alongside my won-derful colleagues and splendid board members. I would hereby like to extend a warm welcome to our new presi-dent Molly Warner, president-elect Nancy Gorbman, and newsletter “editor in chief” Mike Woolf. A heartfelt thank

you for the services of our continuing secretary Kathleen Arends, our ever-faithful treasurer Richard Ginnis, membership coordinator Betty Swift, and fear-less leader of the Back Room Gang, Miyo Aoki are also in order. You are the back-bone(s) of our organization and your services are invaluable. Thank you, one and all!

In addition to providing early music calendar listings on the fourth page, this month's newsletter is bulging with news from our very own “Port Townsend” workshop (at UPS in Tacoma). I am especially happy to announce that my former teacher, Eva Legene, will be in Seattle in September for a couple of notable events. Please read below for more information.

This is our 2nd season of meetings starting in September, so for our playing ses-sion on September 8th I'd like to gather everyone together in the large group. There will not be a Back Room Gang, but Miyo Aoki will be standing by to “buddy up” in case anyone needs a bit of extra help. The beautiful Oche Nash (Our Fa-ther) by Nikolai Kedrov will be our warm-up piece. Then, because I can't quite seem to get enough of him lately, we will play some of my favorite works by Isaac - “La Spagna” , “Quis dabit” and “La Morra”, to name a few. The year 2017 marks the 100th year anniversary of the death of Scott Joplin so we'll end the evening with a jaunty Rag or two, and I promise an enjoyable evening will be had by all.

All sizes of recorders and viols welcome. If anyone would like music ahead of time, please send me an email with a request for a specific part.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

SRS Meeting

Friday,

September 8, 2017 @ 7:30 pm

Playing Session (Vicki Boeckman)

Kedrov, Isaac, and Joplin

All sizes of recorders and viols are welcome.

Newsletter Deadline for October Issue:

Sunday, September 17th

Reminder

Holborne Play Date and Pot Luck!

Sunday,

August 27, 2017 @ 1:30—5:00+

Refer to your invitation email sent to SRS members

for details.

Refreshments (September)

Following tradition, members of the SRS board will provide

refreshments for the first meeting of the season.

A sign-up sheet for future

meetings will be available at the September playing session.

Two Events with Special Guest Eva Legene (Vicki Boeckman)

The Art of the Rhetoric Lecture/Demo with Special Guest Eva Legene

Saturday, September 16, 2017 10:00 am - 1:00 pm Maple Leaf Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall

$20.00

Many of you will remember Eva's compelling opening program in March of 2014 about rhythm and emotion in Bach's music with emphasis on rhetoric. Eva barely scratched the surface of this multi-faceted topic, so when I heard she would be in Seattle I asked if she would be willing to expound upon it, and she eagerly accepted. I will be able to tell you more about this event at our meeting, but please mark your calendars and don't miss this opportunity to immerse yourselves in this fascinating topic, right here in our very own meeting space! For those wanting to refresh your memories, check out the Meeting Notes from April 2014.

Wait! There is more! Eva and her lovely daughter Astrid Andersson will be in the US to play for Lee McRae's memorial concert in Berkeley later in the month for which I (and a number of musicians) will be joining. Eva, Astrid

and I are delighted to have the opportunity to play together and wanted more than just one performance, so we decided to arrange a concert here in Seattle as well. For those of you who may not know my history, Eva was the reason I moved to Denmark in 1981. She was my teacher at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen and it is an absolute joy for me to be playing with her as a colleague.

Please join us on Sunday September 17th at 3:00 pm, in the Sanctuary of Maple Leaf Lutheran Church for a lovely afternoon of recorder solos, duets and trios. Suggested donation $25

2017/2018

SRS Meetings

Meetings are usually (but not always—see red dates below) held on the first Friday of each

month, September to May, at 7:30pm,

Maple Leaf Lutheran Church, 10005—32nd NE, Seattle.

Meetings often include a short performance of interest to recorder or viol players, en-

semble playing for all levels of recorder players, and a begin-

ning recorder ensemble. A $5 donation is requested for

non-members.

September 8, 2017 October 6, 2017

November 3, 2017 December 1, 2017

January 5, 2018 February 2, 2018

March 2, 2018 April 13, 2018 May 11, 2018

The Fourth Farewell (Isabella Pagel and Carolyn Lober)

We have been playing together for the past 10 years, but will be parting ways as we each head off on our separate adventures. Please join us for one final goodbye concert! We will be joined by Kate Faber, the third member of our trio Rockin’ Recorders, and Vicki Boeckman, our wonderful teacher. Saturday, August 26 at 7:00—8:30 pm Music Center of the Northwest, 901 N 96th St, Seattle WA

SRS Library Update (Hanan Bell, SRS Music Librarian)

A major overhaul of the SRS Library was undertaken during the summer. Over the past year, we had received a large number of donations music to be added to the already overcrowded library. The SRS Board discussed how to man-age the situation and decided that simply adding more boxes to the library was not workable. Instead the library was purged of duplicates and also many of the items that were photocopies of published works. This allowed us to add many of the donated items that didn’t duplicate those that we had and still leave the library a bit less cramped.

This change has some benefits and some drawbacks. The benefits are clear—we have a much expanded collection and it is easier to search through. The drawbacks are that if a multipart piece is only available as a score you will need to copy it to play it and if someone doesn’t return music then it is lost to us. Thus, while the library doesn’t have a fixed borrowing time, we encourage people to return music so others can see it.

Music that was removed from the library was made available to those attending the Port Townsend workshop and donations were requested and received. The music that was not taken will be available on the same basis at the Sep-tember SRS meeting.

SAVE THE DATE! Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018

Matthias Maute will be back in Seattle next March!

Join us for the “American Recorder Relay”! This event will be directed and conducted by Matthias Maute, interna-tionally renowned recorder performer and teacher, composer, artistic co-director of Ensemble Caprice, award-winning recording artist, and much more!

Matthias will tour the West Coast with a new concept: a 2-hour workshop (rehearsal) with amateur players, culmi-nating in a concert the same day. The concert features Matthias performing solo works by Telemann and various of his composing colleagues. Workshop participants will perform a suite by Schein, and also a concerto with Matthias as soloist, which he will have composed especially for the “Relay”.

Celebrate “Play the Recorder Month” (March 2018) by participating in this unique event!

Register early as space is limited.

Schedule: a 2 hour rehearsal will be at (1:00pm-3:00pm), and then the concert at (4:00pm-5:00pm).

The community is invited for an admission fee to the concert.

For more information, contact Nancy Gorbman: ngorbman@hotmail.com

Groups from all over North America and beyond celebrated the recorder during the ARS's Play-the-Recorder Month (PtRM), with events held in a wide variety of settings with programs that promote recorder-playing in local commu-nities. A highlight is playing the PtRM composition music, which this year was a lovely quartet entitled “Waltz” by James Chaudoir.

Our chapter entered the ARS Play-the-Recorder Month Contest and won 2nd place in this contest! The prize is a gift certificate to Lazar’s Early Music. Thanks to all of those who participated in PtRM 2017!

Play-the-Recorder Month – March 2017 (sponsored by the American Recorder Society)

Concerts and Events Calendar

Saturday, September 9 at 2 pm: Moss Bay Recorder Society Meeting, Miyo Aoki conducting. Shoreline Library, 345 NE 175th St, Shoreline. www.mossbayrecorders.org

Saturday, September 23 at 7:30 PM: Pacific Musicworks Underground “From Russia, With Love”. Our crack team of Russian hackers has opened a unique window into the world of 18th century Russian opera at the St. Petersburg court of Catherine the Great. Tenor Zach Finkelstein joins the Underground House Band for rarely performed arias and instrumental music by Bortniansky, Berezovsky, Sokolovsky, Araja, and Fomin, blending Italian high drama and virtuosity, French lyricism, and native folk influences. RESONANCE at Soma Towers, 288 106th Ave NE Suite 203, Bellevue WA

Tuesday, September 26 at 7:00pm: “From Russia with Love” as above, at

Naked City Brewery & Taphouse, 8564 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle WA

S E P T E M B E R

A U G U S T

Saturday, August 26 at 7 pm: The Fourth Farewell (Isabella Pagel and Carolyn Lober). Please join us for one final goodbye concert! We will be joined by Kate Faber, the third member of our trio Rockin’ Recorders, and Vicki Boeckman, our wonderful teacher. Music Center of the Northwest, 901 N 96th St, Seattle WA

Port Townsend Early Music Workshop, July 9-15, 2017 Introduction by Molly Warner, Seattle WA

The Port Townsend Early Music was held this summer on the campus of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, with Vicki Boekman as Music Director and Jo Baim as Administrator. This fine team has collaborated together now at UPS for the past four workshops (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017), so by now they've worked out the bugs and the week went by smoothly. Vicki assembled a very fine faculty lineup—wonderful folks all, talented musicians and kind, helpful teachers. 82 students came from three different countries (US, Canada and Australia). The Pacific Northwest was very well represented, with just over half the participants from the state of Washington (43). British Columbia was well represented (10), followed by California (8), Texas (6), Oregon (4), Alaska (3), and one person each from New South Wales (Australia), Wisconsin, Colorado, New York, Alberta, Maine, Arizona and Tennessee. Many of us had attended previous Port Townsend workshops, but there were quite a few new faces too, an oppor-tunity to make new friends. We welcomed Texans whose well-known Texas Toot Workshop was cancelled this year as they lost their venue—but they appreciated the cooler weather here in Washington, coming from the roasting Southwest! All week long we had perfect Northwest summer weather with pleasant temperatures and no rain. Those of us who stayed on campus were housed in Trimble Hall, which we had all to ourselves (there were other camps and retreats being held in other dormitories). Several local participants chose to commute from home. The dining hall provided many menu choices for each meal as well as the opportunity to eat and talk with friends old and new.

The week went by all too rapidly, the days divided from one another by the evening events. The Sunday arrival was celebrated by large-group playing after dinner. Monday night was the Faculty Showcase with dessert and wine in the Rotunda, Tuesday was English Country Dancing led by Laura Mé Smith, with Jack Ashworth leading the band, and Wednesday afternoon and evening were unscheduled. Throughout the week the Seattle Recorder Society held a sale by freewill donation of excess music from our library, and donated items went to the highest bidder by a Si-lent Auction that wrapped up on Thursday. The Auction was followed by the fabulous Faculty Concert in the Chapel. Friday dinner was a Salmon Banquet in the Rotunda with entertainment by some of the student ensembles; some folks wore costumes. Pickup groups met to make music together every evening after the scheduled events, including Celtic music led by Debbie McMeel. Everyone packed up on Saturday morning and the final student concert took place in the auditorium of the music building. A wonderful and busy week!

Each of us took four different classes that met every day, with the exception of Wednesday afternoon. Every year we ask participants to volunteer to report on their classes. And here is what they wrote:

Peter Seibert

The Language of Jazz: I loved this class, it was exactly what I hoped it would be - learning the language of jazz. For those who were hoping to play more, they may have been disappointed, but Peter gave us plenty of music to attempt on our own time. His prep and coordination with cd examples was great!

Recorder Orchestra: Just the right challenge for the group, Peter was both encouraging and demanding. First time I had played with such a beautiful bass component and it felt fabulous. Sight reading was wonderful. Peter had scored a lot of variety; his Ave Maria was amazing. He was amazingly gener-ous with his work.

Linda Olsen, Palmer AK

Ellen Seibert

Apparently, a number of people started their journey into playing the viola de gamba with lessons from Ellen. There's a good reason for that.

It's always humbling to begin a new instrument. So, for my-self, taking beginning viol was like learning a new language and trying to order a meal in that language in a place where English is not spoken. Sometimes you get what you order, and sometimes, well...

Ellen really knows how this works. When you approach a place that sells food in a foreign venue you need certain skills. Where do I sit? What tools do I use? What are the

words for meat, pasta and wine? With a viol that's the first thing you learn. This is how I sit, this how I use the bow, and these are open strings.

Then comes the menu. We can pick out a few words from those open strings but putting our fingers onto them together to make words into a phrase is not easy. It might not have been the meal we could have had in a master's class of viols, but we ate, and we laughed, and we were pleased.

Thank you, Ellen, for one of the best experiences I've had in life as a musician. You are a teacher who has compassion, experience, and integrity in bringing the world of strings to the masses. I thank you.

Suzie Keithly, Lummi Island WA

Nina Stern

After listening to Nina Stern's two most recent CDs every day for the last two years, I finally took two classes from her - “Music of the Tre-cento” and “An Introduction to Armenian Music” - and she did not dis-appoint.

She flew in from Nairobi just a few days before the workshop started and, while she must have felt jet lagged, she was a calm, gracious but firm presence in her classes. She is very knowledgeable about all as-pects of recorder playing and immediately straightened me out on a few things I should have learned long ago, regarding pitch and dynam-ics. I also learned in both classes how to turn a monophonic tune into a polyphonic music set, which opens up a whole new world of music to me and my music group, Chace. And that the key to learning a fast piece of music together is close repetition. She is sweet and easy to talk to but she holds her students firmly to task, a winning combination in a teacher.

Kathy Parker, Bremerton WA

Alison Melville

Several of us were fortunate to be assigned to a technique class with Alison Melville. As might be expected by devotées of her recently published exercise book for alto recorder, Hors d'Oeuvres, Alison's lessons were sprinkled with a de-lightful sense of humor and information born of her love of languages.

One of Alison's main themes was that we should listen to ourselves as we play the recorder and try to develop facility with our instruments away from the visual axis of reading notes on the printed page. As we played scales in harmony at a lag of a third from each other, she urged us to listen to ourselves and how our pitch fit in. She also recommended playing up and down scales interleaved with playing the third above each note on the ascent and the third below on the descent, followed by doing the same with sixths and tenths. "If you can do this, you can play anything Telemann ever wrote."

She helped us think about hand position; when an instru-ment is made to order, the maker can offset the holes or

drill them at an angle to accommodate your particular hand. We practiced different types of articulation and performed a number of breathing exercises.

The points that impressed me the most in this class were the quote about interval practice and Telemann, and her story that as a student, her warm-up for every practice session was to play through all 22 exercises in Hans-Martin Linde's exercise book: Neuzietliche Übungsstücke für die Altbockflöte. I left the week with a deepened understanding of how regular work on scales, arpeggios and other exercises could improve all aspects of my playing. Thank you Alison!

Barbara McKnight, Seattle WA

Rotem Gilbert

Rotem Gilbert’s recorder technique class was all that such a class should be. The students had a wide range of questions, and Rotem addressed them all with grace and thoroughness. She showed us all as a group some very use-ful articulation, breath, and finger exercises. She then focused on each stu-dent in turn, demonstrating how these exercises can be modified to identify specific issues we might be having that day and how to use the exercise to help work through them. Every single student I spoke with got something important out of this class, and a couple students made remarkable progress over the course of the week. The overall tone of the class was gentle, friend-ly, and supportive for all.

Mike Woolf, Seattle WA

Paul Leenhouts

This year’s Port Townsend Early Music Workshop was a string of pearls for me. One of the many highlights was Paul Leenhouts and Vicki Boeckman playing Leenhouts’ composition “Kiss” at the Salmon Dinner. Aside from be-ing an outstanding player and teacher, Paul demonstrated that he truly is an entertainer par excellence!

At this workshop I experienced Paul’s teaching in two classes. He lead us through a Suite from Schein’s “Banchetto musicale”, working on cohesive ensemble playing, balancing voices and teasing out stylistic finery. Paul is a bottomless well when it comes to finding new imagery helping us to under-stand the music and making it more expressive.

I can highly recommend taking a masterclass from Paul, yet brace yourself – you are in for a ride. Within a few notes of playing, Paul would pinpoint where each participant had the most opportuni-ty for growth. Without the slightest detour Paul went right to everybody’s core issue. Equally im-mediate though was the immense improvement of each participant’s playing. I am very much look-ing forward to more classes with Paul!

Sabine Endrigkeit

Sarah Mead

Sarah, who filled in on one week's notice, led a fabulous class for over forty people on the music of Orlando Gibbons. We did madrigals (yes, he did write others besides "The Silver Swan," and very nice they are, too) and several verse anthems, with a fine combination of voices, low recorders, and viols. Sarah did a splendid job of keeping this large group in line and getting the most out of us, particularly by focusing on the words as well as the music. She led us with humor and skill; we just wished there had been time for more. Bring her back next time!

Kate Bracher, Brunsick ME

Sarah was awesome as a coach for the voices and viols. Not only having been called in at the last minute, she knew the material and I liked her technique of getting everyone laughing at her numerous stories, and then saying, "Let's sing." Beautiful music followed.

Linda Shortridge, Hansville WA

Adam Knight Gilbert

Adam Gilbert’s Anno 1517 class celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the death of Hen-ricus Isaac in 1517. Adam found interesting combina-tions of instruments-- high and low recorders and the edgy viol, to play Isaac, Senfl, Rener and friends. In the final concert we played Isaac’s "Palle Palle", written to honor Isaac's patrons, the Medici, and refer-ring to their Coat of Arms. His knowledge of the histo-ry of this era was impressive. If I hear that Adam Gil-bert is teaching a class in the future, I’m signing up!

Nancy Fahringer, Tucson AZ

Rather like Dante's journey through Purgatory, Adam's "Symbology in Medieval Music” class lead us through an amazing journey to understand the meaning and context of some beautiful music. The composers of this period created wonderful material that can be a struggle for us to understand, with layers of melody seemingly unrelated to the melody above and below the one you are trying to play. Adam gave us tools to find the patterns tying this together, as well as encouraging and entertaining us with his wonderful technique.

Ellis Hillinger, Seattle WA

Miyo Aoki

Miyo's technique class was the perfect way to start a day of recorder playing. After a few vigorous stretches and body-stimulating activities we concentrated on loosen-ing up and massaging our hands and fingers. I found this really did help playing throughout the day. Next Miyo focused on ensemble playing. Tuning to others and listening are important skills. How does our tone relate to others? What is the role of our note in a chord? Equally important is feeling the beat and preparing for the beat rather than jumping to it. From ensemble playing to finding the magic note (blowing softly on low d on an alto to hear an octave above or even two octaves if you're lucky), Miyo's teaching skills were highly valued.

Ione Turman, Seattle WA

Joanna Blendulf

Joanna taught me in a daily Technique viol class, a Lawes/White performance class and in a private les-son. All were superb. Joanna is not only a marvelous player, but has the ability to take apart an element of a technique and patiently help us put the technique together, bit by bit. She gave us a technique page that she had created, which has been my daily practicing ritual ever since. My lesson was hugely helpful, and gave me some further understanding of ways to present viol dynamics and bow placement which had up until now escaped me!

Nancy Fahringer, Tucson AZ

Janet Loy said to me some years ago that Joanna Blendulf is the “whole package”. She is a superb musician, she is a gifted teacher, and she is a nice person. How true. My class in the morning with Joanna at the PT workshop was full of her teaching wonders and her musicianship. Her encouraging ways inspired us all.

Our technique training was based on Joanna’s Daily Prac-tice Worksheet. This single page has on it a variety of ex-ercises designed to allow you to teach your bowing arm, hand and fingers to execute the most beautiful of phrases every time you play the viol. We spent 3/4 of our class time executing one or another of these exercises to Joan-

na’s exacting supervision and minutely detailed demonstrations. In Joanna’s demonstrations it all seemed easy enough to accomplish and yet it was altogether elusive much of the time. Once again we are left with the conclusion that practice, practice, practice is the only way to get the results we all want. We mastered the swiveling of the thumb on the bow stick while holding the bow with the left hand at the tip, so important to remaining relaxed. We learned how to move only the wrist right or left according to the direction of the bow strokes and when to keep the forearm stiff for strokes.

Employing good technique and Joanna’s coaching skills we did learn the Weelkes “Make Haste Ye Lovers” well enough to perform it in the student presentations at the end of the week. It was a great class.

Ellen Seibert, Seattle WA

Clea Galhano

My Multi-Cultural Class with Clea was a delightful di-version of energetic music making.

It was cheery, lively, and fun!

And we learned a few things along the way…

We learned how to shape the phrase, how to shape the note, and where to breathe.

At the end of a piece, what accomplishment we felt to see Clea’s beautiful smile and to hear “YES!”

Carol Postle, Kelowna B.C.

Jack Ashworth: Be Not Shiftless

Jack greeted us with our technique focus for the week, shifting. Thus saying he gave us a number of handouts dealing with the topic. Among them Seven Rules plus seven things to keep in mind, two pages of shifting illustrations, our own part of a Michael East Fancy, and a mysterious shift-ing work sheet. An engaging examination and playing of the Fancy Desperavi found us finding places to shift and identifying the rule or rules that applied to the shift. The mysterious work sheet turned out to be our homework. Each note of a Holborne Pavan was numbered and marked with places where a shift should or could be made. Our task was to examine our own part and decide which of the 7 rules would apply to

the proposed shifts. The discussion the following day was not only very interesting, and very helpful for finding new ways to think about and use shifting, such as a device for shaping phrases. Throughout the week we followed this pattern of analyzing and playing and learning to adopt shifting as a very useful tool. I also had the privilege of playing and talking about the music of Heinrich Isaac under the guidance of Jack. I loved the variety of tunes and textures from songs to liturgical settings, but always with, as Jack pointed out, a kind of clockwork precision that is very satisfying to experience.

Janet Loy, Beaverton OR

Jo Baim

My first time at the Port Townsend Early Music Workshop was a real pleasure—it's a beautiful venue, and the Tacoma weather was a blessed relief from the triple-digit temperatures in Texas! But a lot of my ease and enjoyment was a result of the de-tailed and caring work done by workshop administrator Jo Baim. Before the event, I peppered Jo with emails worrying about arriving a day late!, what should I bring?, do I need to have concert clothes? — and in every case, she answered with a calm, reas-suring email reply within hours. And then during the workshop, she was the friendly go-to person for information, and for getting things done.

As a workshop admin myself (the Texas Toot), I know the amount of work and plan-ning that goes on behind the scenes to make the thing run smoothly. Jo is clearly an experienced and loving hand at doing just that. PTEMW is lucky to have her!

Susan Richter, Austin TX

Debbie McMeel

Since it happened that Jo Baim could not always be with us as administrator at PT this time, I want-ed to say that Debbie McMeel was a superb understudy and I found that out on Monday night dur-ing the faculty sight reading session as she knows how to get things done. My viol beginners class was being held in a smallish room with two large sofas taking up much of the space, squeezing 9 of us with instruments and need for bowing arm freedom. I mentioned to Debbie that it would be great if we could either get the sofa out or change to another room without going to another build-ing for class. No sooner said than Debbie was on the phone with the maintenance people. By the time I got there the last of two sofas was being wheeled out on a dolly to disappear.

Ellen Seibert, Seattle WA

Vicki Boeckman

Vicki Boeckman was wonderful. She contacted us pre-workshop asking what we wanted to learn, and thoughtfully included them into the curriculum. She was adept at work-ing with students of all levels and gave us a plan of practice to improve our skills as musicians. I'd rate her an A.

Linda Olsen, Palmer AK

David Ohannesian

Although he taught no classes, David Ohannesian was resident for the second half of the week to help with recorder repair. He set up his workshop in the sun-ny living room of one of the third floor suites of Trimble Hall, rendered his opin-ions on particular problems, and fixed up quite a few instruments. David is also a recorder maker and performer, and played the contrabass recorder in several of the pieces presented on Thursday evening at the superlative Faculty Concert. Thank you, David, for your technical and artistic contributions to the PTEMW!

Molly Warner, Seattle WA

Vicki Boeckman

As music director of the Port Townsend Early Music Workshop, Vicki wears many different hats, some clearly visible to PT participants and others only indirectly sensed or invisible to others.

First some history - Vicki studied recorder with Eva LaGene and lived in Denmark for many years, teaching and playing recorder professionally. Her first contact with the recorder com-munity in Seattle was during the 1990's when Eva suggested Vicki as a faculty member for PTEMW when it was still held in Port Townsend and Peter Seibert was the music director both of the Seattle Recorder Society and the PTEMW. Vicki's teaching style and her playing ability were smash hits, and Vicki has been on the workshop faculty ever since. After a cou-ple of decades of living in Denmark, she moved to Seattle to refocus her musical career in North America. In 2009, PTEMW changed venues to the University of Puget Sound, and in 2011 Vicki took over the reins as music director of the workshop, teamed with Jo Baim as administrator. On Peter Seibert's retirement after 41 years as music director of the Seattle Recorder Society , we were thrilled to have Vicki step into Peter's very large shoes, and she has helped to guide this organization with her own style, and with plenty of creativity and common sense.

So, how did Vicki go about getting PTEMW-2017 off the ground? Not all by herself by any means. Jo handled communications and financial arrangements with UPS, advertising, initial budget development, registration, pre- and post-communications with participants, and lo-gistics (among other tasks). The Seattle Recorder Society, its board and the PTEMW com-mittee provided the web site, the treasurer (Richard Ginnis), the financial mechanisms and back-up (bank account, PayPal, etc.), and general advice and support for Vicki and Jo as needed.

Vicki's job started shortly after PTEMW-2015 was over, starting to contact potential faculty for 2017. All of these wonderful musician teachers are busy, and most make long-term com-mitments during the summer workshop season. Week-long workshops across the country start on a Sunday and end the following Saturday, giving the faculty time to travel from one venue to the next for those working back-to-back weeks. Many of our faculty have taught at PTEMW several times and are beloved by participants. Vicki has the task of deciding what is the best balance between having our old favorites return again vs. giving other folks a chance for exposure. And when all faculty have signed on, there still may be last minute changes - this year Wendy Gillespie had a family emergency, and suggested fabulous Sarah Mead who came at a week's notice and took over all of Wendy's lesson plans. Vicki also al-lotted the classes, giving the participants their first or second choices whenever possible for each of the four periods. Vicki is a wonderful teacher for small classes, leader of large en-sembles, and performer with her colleagues - all of those those skills were displayed at the workshop. Vicki took photos of all the faculty in their classes, to help illustrate this docu-ment. And she always looks glamorous in costume at the Friday night banquet! Thanks Vicki, for everything you have done to make PTEMW-2017 a memorable experience!

Molly Warner, Seattle WA

My Identity Crisis?

by Barbara Green

I am a commuter, should I have been a resident?

How musically able am I?

What kind of musician do I want to be? Do I want to perform or simply play for the enjoyment of mak-ing music for myself and with others?

What instrument do I play best and most comfortably? How much do I want to challenge myself?

What does the faculty expect of me?

How much music history don’t I know? How much do I need to know before I can appreciate it?

What is my music theory competence? I want and need to know more!!!

How well do I know all these people? For all my inclinations at being “Miss Social Butterfly”, perhaps I want to remain just a little bit quieter this week?

In fact, my identity crisis questions needn’t have been so distressing. I was simply and gratefully a stu-dent at the Port Townsend Early Music Workshop.

I am not sure I answered any of my questions, but I came away from an exhilarating and exhausting week with my greatest lesson – learning to listen differently and I hope better. I listened to the into-nation on my scales to get that just perfect pitch. Half steps, whole steps, finger shading, alternate fingerings, and heard, when as a group we were all in tune, the room nearly vibrated and I thought I could almost see sound waves! I listened for the perfect clear tone as I lifted my fingers softly and placed them down firmly on the recorder. I listened to my breath. I listened to Van Eyck busking un-der the tree, and I listened to the drone and plaintive heartbeat of someone’s Armenian soul. I lis-tened to voices, viols and recorders together and could not believe my own heartbeat. Curiously, the enduring memory of the faculty concert was listening to Nina play the egg shaker with intent and fo-cus – recognizing that nothing is inconsequential – each sound and each rest has intention.

All week I listened and then felt fellowship and purpose playing music together.

I’m listening for details about Port Townsend 2019!

On behalf of the Seattle Recorder Society Board, we thank you, EVERYBODY, for your enthusiastic interactions during the week! That is what makes a workshop so much

more than the sum of its parts!