Dear Friends of the Kamuela Philharmonic,
On behalf of the musicians and Board members of the Kamuela Philharmonic, I hope your celebrations of Easter and observances of Passover earlier this month were good ones, and that you and your friends and family are well. We of the Kamuela Philharmonic have been busy preparing for the April 18 session at the Kahilu Theatre at which we video recorded small ensembles of our string, woodwind, brass and percussion sections playing works by Haydn, Cirone, O’Gorman, Handel, Johann Strauss, Elgar and Mendelssohn, under the direction of Maestro Brian Dollinger, our Artistic Director. We’ll let you know when the videos will be aired. The cost of the session was fully funded by a grant from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.
Earlier this month, we surveyed Kamuela Philharmonic musicians and learned that the vast majority of those responding believed that our Artistic Director’s contract should be renewed. We also plan to similarly survey our season ticketholders and major donors.
We are now near the end of the fourth month of the year and the tenth month of our 2020-21 season, a season in which it was impossible to present live concerts by our full orchestra due to the necessary gathering and travel restrictions put in place by our county and state governments. As you probably know, small ensembles of Kamuela Philharmonic musicians, funded by grants, were able to present free one-hour concerts in outdoor settings in shopping centers and nursing and retirement homes. Those concerts were all well-received, and we plan to apply for additional grants to enable us to continue them in the future.
Because we hope and believe that continued safety measures (masking and cleanliness) and the vaccination program will enable our governments to relax the gathering and travel restrictions before this fall, we have reserved concert dates at the Kahilu Theatre for our 2021-22 season.
The first MasterWork concert, we hope, will be on October 3, 2021, and as I reported in last month’s letter, will feature the winners of our Madeline Schatz-Harris Concerto Competition, Crystal Ferreira, age 10, a student of Dr. Thomas Yee, performing the 1st Movement of the Mendelssohn piano concerto, and Aimee Okagawa, age 15, a student of Wendy Yamashita, performing the 1st Movement of the Grieg piano concerto. The remaining dates reserved for next season’s MasterWork concerts are Sunday, January 30, and Sunday, March 27, 2022.
We are also pleased to announce that we have elected three more persons to serve on our Board of Directors. They are Theresa Ryan, Dennis Yates, and Delphina Dorrance. You can review their biographies on our website: kamuelaphil.org.
All of our activities, of course, require funding, and the absence of ticket revenue makes our dependence on contributions from donors like you more important than ever before in order to continue our efforts to bring classical symphonic music to the people of, and visitors to, Hawaii County.
Your donations to KPOS are always welcome and can be made here, or by sending a check made payable to Kamuela Philharmonic Orchestra Society to PO Box 2597, Kamuela, HI, 96743. We are qualified as a charitable organization pursuant to Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, so your donations may be a deductible expense. Mahalo for your consideration, and we hope you will donate generously.
Aloha, and stay well,
Joel Gimpel, President
Kamuela Philharmonic Orchestra Society
