| Our Conductor for February: Alexa Haynes-Pilon |
June and August meetings are directed by chapter members here at SFRS. Any member is welcome to try their hand at it, we would love to have you bring your favorite selections to conduct. Contact Greta to volunteer!
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Our in-person meetings continue to be suspended due to personal distancing mandate during the CoViD-19 pandemic (see our News & Events page). After TEN MONTHS of quarantine keeping us from meeting at Christ Church Lutheran, we are itching to play music in person! But we are still "playing it safe" and we've held virtual meetings since May via the Zoom Conferencing platform. Since June, players from other chapters have been invited to join our meetings, and in September we joined forces with the Sacramento Recorder Society to present excellent online meetings. We've have had an average of between 40 and 50 recorder enthusiasts in attendance, resulting in an SFRS record 47 paid memberships!
For our February meeting, we return to our normal place on the calendar, the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and welcome Alexa Haynes-Pilon for the first time to lead our chapters. Until recently, Alexa lived in Davis (CA) but recently re-located to the Washington D.C. area. We are very grateful that, despite the new time zone, she is still happy to lead us on Wednesday, February 17 at 7:30 PM Pacific time. Although Alexa's principal instruments are 'cello and viola da gamba, we can be assured of something wonderful for recorders under her direction. Please read about her below, and plan to join us for a delightful 90 minutes with this young and enthusiastic director.
To participate, send an email to Greta and be placed on our invitation list.
NOTE: Be sure to keep your Zoom account up to date for the best online musical experience. Click HERE for a PDF sheet of tips to help you with settings for the best results for playing of and listening to recorders on Zoom.
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| Alexa Haynes-Pilon with her array of instruments |
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ALEXA HAYNES-PILON has a passion to create music and connect with members of the community, and because of this, she co-founded and is co-Artistic Director of Los Angeles Baroque (LAB), a community baroque orchestra based in South Pasadena, CA. In addition, she has introduced thousands of elementary and secondary school students to Renaissance and baroque winds and viols through her work with the Crumhorn Collective, in collaboration with Ars Lyrica, an outreach program in Houston. Alexa has been a guest conductor for the Orange County Recorder Society, the Pacifica Viola da Gamba Society, and the Southern California Recorder Society. She has been a faculty member at the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) Recorder workshop, as well as a faculty member (viola da gamba and dulcian) at the Road Scholar Hidden Valley Workshop in Carmel Valley, CA. This past summer, she was on faculty (viola da gamba) at the Port Townsend Early Music Workshop near Seattle.
Recently described by Early Music America as “a special artist with a brilliant future,” Alexa Haynes-Pilon has quickly established herself in the early music scene, performing on baroque cello, viola da gamba, baroque bassoon and dulcian. She is the principal cellist of Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, a core member of Musica Pacifica, and a co-founder of Ensemble Bizarria (Los Angeles). She has performed with American Bach Soloists, Los Angeles Chamber Choir, Opera NEO, Burning River Baroque, the Albany Consort, the American Contemporary Ballet, Los Angeles Baroque Players, and Con Gioia. She has toured in the U.S. and Canada, as well as Bogotà and Mexico City, and has made numerous recordings including solo tracks for television and film.
After completing her BMus and MMus in cello performance at Brandon University, Alexa earned a performance certificate from the University of Toronto in connection with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, studying cello with Christina Mahler and viola da gamba with Joëlle Morton. Alexa recently completed her doctoral studies at the University of Southern California, where she studied baroque cello and viola da gamba with William Skeen, and baroque bassoon and dulcian with Charlie Koster. She has participated in most of the major Early Music festivals and workshops in North America including the Tafelmusik Winter and Summer Institutes, the American Bach Soloists Academy in San Francisco, the Vancouver Early Music Festival, the Twin Cities Early Music Festival, and the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals.
(taken from Alexa’s website and has been re-arranged and edited slightly for SFRS/SRS context. Find the original here: https://www.alexahaynespilon.com/bio ~ ed.)
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Although we really miss playing together in person, most of us are almost getting used to attending online music playing events. As we enjoy our new season, we'll experience each conductor's unique approach to the art of online presentation.
We look forward to next season when we hope to play together again in person and have a brilliant slate of professional musicians direct us. Meanwhile, we will do our very best to stay well and keep up our enthusiasm for playing our beloved recorders!
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| Pied Piper illustration - the top of an old model Mollenhauer recorder box |
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