TSO Newsletter 4 - Timmins Symphony Orchestra

Quartely Newsletter 4
November 2015
NEWSLETTER
Timmins Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
TSO events: Main concert series:
October 17th 2015
November 28th 2015 (Thériault)
March 5th 2015
April 16th 2015
May 14th 2015
Chamber Music Series:
December 17th 2015, 7:30pm
March 24th 2016, 7:30pm
!
Event Sponsors:
Thank you to Porcupine
Springs who donate water for
our audience at each and every
concert.
From our President:!
Greetings to the Timmins Symphony family. I write this
report after one of our most successful concerts in quite some
time. Through a lot of hard work on the part of the orchestra,
chorus and board, we gave Timmins a concert they will talk
about through the season. And we impressed many new
people who have never before been to one of our concerts.!
It was also a relief that the first of our conductor/music
director candidates fit so well with our organization. He had a
good time working with us and we enjoyed working with him.
That was obvious to many in the audience who have told me
as much since the concert.!
Returning to Theriault had a feeling of going home. And
while there are many positives to using this venue, we must
constantly keep in mind that the amount of additional hours
of hard work needed from everybody is great if we are to
come back and use it again. I would be remiss if I didn’t take
this opportunity to say thank you to the students and staff of
École secondaire catholique Thériault for providing us such
wonderful, hard working students to work at front of house
and backstage. A big thank you to the French Catholic school
For the love of Music!
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November 2015
board: Conseil scolaire catholique du district des Grandes
Rivières and École secondaire catholique Thériault for the
significant reduction on our rental invoice for the Charles
Fournier Auditorium.!
Thank you:
Daphne Wallbridge and JoëlleRenée Éthier for your hard work
finding and organising our
volunteer group for the November
concert.!
Thank you to all the students
from École secondaire
catholique Thériault for such a
brilliant team of volunteers. You
were all amazing!!
Thank you to Conseil scolaire
catholique des Grandes
Rivière for your support and help
for our November concert. !
!
!
But the work is not over and we must push forward. Today, I
received a comparison chart from Orchestra Canada showing
how every orchestra in the country both professional and
amateur are doing financially. The picture is bleak. There are
many sacred cows that are in much worse shape than we are.
We will still need to find a fundraising vehicle to replace this
year’s fall fundraiser and we have to promote the remaining
concerts of the season as hard as we’ve pushed this last one.!
So, I close by saying thank you to everybody in the family. I
know how hard you have been working and this last weekend
was the reward for all of your effort. Enjoy the success and
have a very merry Christmas and a joyous holiday season.!
Roy Takayesu - President!
The quest for a new Artistic Director:!
After a successful round of interviews, three candidates will
have the opportunity to take to the podium and lead our
orchestra and chorus in the production of a main series
concert. Each candidate will spend a week in Timmins,
rehearsing both the orchestra and chorus. They will also have
opportunities to meet with board members and get to know
the TSO music family. !
Roy Takayesu might have best described this process by
For the love of Music!
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November 2015
stating that we are auditioning as much for him as he is for us. It is our time to shine and show each
candidate our musical worth. One of the main pillars of our continued growth as musicians in this
transition period is our hard working rehearsal conductors: Monty Kirkpatrick and Cathy
Klopoushak have shared their vision of the repertoire studied and helped shape the music.
Joshua Wood was our guest conductor for our November concert. What a wonderful experience for
us to work with Joshua. Speaking with other orchestra members, I can relate to you that many
positive discussions where had with regards to Joshua's work as a conductor, his musicianship and his
overall personality. Many orchestra members and board members had the opportunity to talk with
Joshua over lunch or dinner and many positive remarks where communicated to the TSO board. !
From our financial committee:!
After a successful 2014 - 2015 season during which we reduced the debt from $41,500 to just a little
over 5,000$ the first quarter numbers for this season have not been so promising. Unfortunately,
attendance at our first concert was a mere 120, resulting in a drop of ticket sales. !
Furthermore, the cancellation of our Fall Fundraiser Gala in November will also hinder our progress
towards becoming sustainable. It will be important to rally together and take a more active role in
supporting fundraising efforts in the new year. !
The total Private Sector donations are currently down by $3,598, but are slowly climbing as our finance
committee is hard at work building relationships with our patrons. We are optimistic that this
revenue stream will continue to improve. !
Fundraising News: !
Our single largest annual fundraiser scheduled for November 13th was cancelled, due to lack of ticket
sales. Therefore, we are now down by over $12,ooo and will need to find a way to recover this loss
ASAP.!
Please share any innovative ideas for possible fundraisers to replace our Fall Gala Diner with board
members. !
New orchestra members: !
We are always looking for new orchestral musicians and chorus members to join our music family.
Know anyone with musical experience, or someone who loves to sing? Tell them about us. Help them
reach out to us and be a part of the growth of the TSO musical family. !
The Timmins Symphony orchestra will hold two open rehearsals in the New Year. This event will be
advertised and added prominently to our website and social media. We hope to attract potential new
musicians who might not otherwise join the symphony. !
A continual decline of musicians over the last five years have left the orchestra in need of new players.
The board is hard at work rebuilding a potential succession of musicians through new music school
initiatives and networking within the community. The reality is that we can not afford to bring in
increased number of ringers for each concert. !
!
For the love of Music!
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November 2015
From our Public Relations Committee:!
The Public Relations Committee is hard at work. Many important ongoing tasks have been
restructured and streamlined in order to increase the productivity and efficiency of our committee.
The website is regularly updated and several small design isssues have been resolved. For example, it
is now easier for our patrons to donate to the Timmins Symphony directly from our website. !
Articles with more content are being published in order to further captivate our potential audience.
We are now imbedding video links of some of the repertoire that we are performing. We now include
bio information and some program notes for various works in our concerts. !
The Public Relations Committee has also taken a more active role in establishing regular
communication with our local media services with hope that we might leverage more coverage of our
events. Our November concert was covered by the Daily Press, Le voyageur, Le Loup, Radio Canada
and Moose FM. Luc Martin has taken on the responsability of contacting and organizing interviews
as concert dates approach in order to generate publicity for our events before concert night. !
From our TSO Chorus:!
The Timmins Symphony Chorus has been rehearsing weekly since mid-September. We greatly
enjoyed our performance with the orchestra during the November 28th concert at Thériault, under
the direction of Joshua Wood and Cathy Klopoushak. Performing with Céleste Lévis, our guest
soloist, was truely a wonderful experience. !
In December, the Chorus will be bringing holiday cheer to the community by performing at the
Walford Residence and St. Mary's Gardens. !
From our Music School Committee:!
The first term is well under way at the music school. This year the Geoffrey James Lee School of
Music welcomes a new teacher, TSO member Joanna Millson. Joanna is teaching violin to a number of
students and is a great addition to our teaching staff! !
Angela Garwood-Touw will be teaching a few cello students as well as violin students this year
allowing Matthew’s students to continue their studies. Dawna Carrier and Mits Takayesu studios are
busy and the Music Tree School continues to use our venue on Wednesdays for their early childhood
music education program under the direction of Geneviève Sulatycky.!
The school’s Christmas Recital will be held at the Pentecostal Church at 850 Airport Road on Monday
December 14, 2015 at 7:00pm. Everyone is welcome to attend. Admittance is by cash donation.!
!
!
!
For the love of Music!
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Chamber music series:!
The Chamber Series is back for its third season in partnership with the Timmins Museum:NEC. The
first concert will be held on Thursday December 17, 2015 at 7:30pm. The TSO’s Angela Garwood-Touw
and Joanna Millson will be joined by special guests Jamie Arrowsmith, Danièle Jones and the Yuletide
Singers. !
The second concert will be held on Thursday March 24, 2016 at 7:30pm. An evening of quartet music
is planned, with Angela and Joanna being joined by cellist Alexandrea Lee and violinist Nick Ross
from Sudbury. !
Tickets are available at the Timmins Museum:NEC. Tickets for the two concert series are $40 ($25 for
students) or $22 per concert in advance ($13 for students) and $25 per concert at the door ($15 for
students)!
Programming Committee and the 2016-17 season:!
Discussions have begun with regards to the process presently in place for programming a concert
series. The board feels that the timing is right to put things in place to ensure that we program music
that best reflects the wants of our patrons and the community at large. We will also take the
opportunity to ensure that our musicians' abilities and talents are best showcased through the
repertoire we choose to interpret. !
With declining numbers in the orchestra, repertoire is slowly becoming limited. It is important to
foster a love of music and share this love of music with our children and grandchildren with the hope
that they might someday become musicians and join our musical family. !
Lastly, many of you have expressed concerns with the level of difficulty of some of the our repertoire.
We hear you! We hope to explore a healthier balance between music that works within our musicians'
abilities and talents and some challenging repertoire. We understand that, as musicians, we feel much
more confident and comfortable being on stage when the music we perform is within our abilities. It
is important to feel like we have performed at a high level at the end of the day. !
A little something #om your orchestra rep:!
I have to take this opportunity to share with you my thoughts about our November 28th concert. I
want to thank every member of the TSO family (orchestra and chorus) for such a great evening of
For the love of Music!
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November 2015
music. Thank you for making us sound so good. It was such a pleasure making music with you. Our
passion and love for what we do really came out on Saturday. I felt like we really performed for our
audience, we communicated with them. In some ways, our repertoire and our guest soloist went a
long way in establishing this rapport with our audience but for the first time in a long time I really felt
like we all came together and made music come alive. For that I thank you!!!!
Lets create this feeling again when we perform in March. Such a great time!!!
For the love of Music!
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