We here at the GFC of the ARS had a busy year as we have tried to navigate the pandemic with its' changing rules and conditions.
We continued to hold our monthly meetings.
We had 4 outdoor socially distanced playing meetings. Each meeting is linked to the month.
We followed the guidelines for outdoor social distancing, hygiene, and safety
recommended in our area to allow members to play together. We fully admit that the
September meeting is unlistenable, but we got better with each attempt to record the
outdoor meetings.
*The topic for our November meeting was "The Essential Graces." We attempted to
introduce members who had very little background in ornamentation to trills, mordents,
appogiaturas, etc.
*The topic for December was our holiday play-along party.
*The topic for January was "Diminutions." We attempted to talk about how to do the
more florid type of ornamentation that many players hear others doing but don't know
how to reproduce.
*February was our "Introduction to Renaissance Dances." We chose a few common
dances and looked at their steps and music
*In March, we held our own unique "Tribute to Irish Music." We did look at some
traditional dancers, but we chose to play arranged tunes.
Over the course of the calendar year, our Chapter created three collaborative videos.
In order to keep our members playing and engaged, we tried our hand at multi-track,
distanced recording. Our first collaborative video was a technology test, to say the
least!
Each attempt was better than the last and two of the videos were turned into play-
alongs. Praetorius. Bach.
Our Chapter submitted an entry for our local radio station's (95.9 WGRQ's )"Hometown Holiday Spotlight."
The audio to our Praetorius Collaboration was submitted and accepted to the
"Hometown Holiday Spotlight." The "Hometown Holiday Spotlight" features
performances by local schools, ensembles, churches, and groups during the Holiday
season. Our performance aired over 7 times. (I lost count of the final total.) 2020 was
our second time participating in this local program.
Speaking of play-alongs...
Our chapter created 52 PLAY-ALONG videos on our YouTube Channel. The videos are
free to everyone. Channel surfers can find play-lists for Renaissance, Baroque,
For those who would prefer not to use YouTube, we also started a Rumble Channel.
We participated in PLAY THE RECORDER MONTH.
Our chapter had fun creating a collaborative play-along and creating a web-series
for Play the Recorder Month. Our web-series focused on free solo music for recorder
spanning instrumentation, genres, and time periods.
Our Chapter created/maintained our web presence to reach as many members and new friends as possible.
We have our website here at: https://fredericksburgreco.wixsite.com/mysite
Anyone can join our facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups
Anyone can view and follow our instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fredrecorder
We made new friends!
This past year we really had to think differently about how we did things and how we communicated with our members. In doing so, we made 3 new online friends from all across the country who joined us for our online meetings.
We are planning for next year.
As we review what we did this past year and evaluate our success (or not), we are already planning for next season. If you have ideas, suggestions, or requests be sure to pass them along. We want to hear from you. fredericksburgrecorders@gmail.com
All are welcome, we hope you will join us next year.
Grimani Brevary: Month of January